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A SHORT HISTORY 
OF NEWARK 



A SHORT HISTORY OF 
NEWARK 



BY 
FRANK JrURQUHART 



NEWARK. N. J. 

BAKER PRINTING COMPANY 

1916 



' ' ' / 

.f\lLll7''' 



FiTiST Edition CoPYRiniiTED, lOOS 
lEvisED Edition CorYP.iGHTED, 191G 

BY 

Baker PniNTiNf! Compaxv 



MAY 15 1916 

©C1.A'}28980 



PREFACE 

This work first appeared in three small pamphlets, 
which, taken together, gave the history of the city 
from th^neginning to the time of the pnl)1ication of 
the third pamphlet. They were written at the request 
of the Free Puhlic Lihrary and published by it. In 
1908 the three pamphlets were re- written and com- 
bined in one book, by the Baker Printing Company, 
the present publishers. This was adopted by the 
Board of Education as a supplementary reader, and 
is believed to be the first school history of a city pub- 
lished in America. The Public Library was largely 
responsible for the preparation of it, especially the 
librarian. Air. John Cotton Dana. 

The present edition is issued to meet the demand 
for a short history of the city during and after its 
two hundred and fiftieth anniversary. The text has 
been carefully recast, and much new material intro- 
duced, especially in the last chapter where the history 
has been brought down to date. This work repre- 
sents the result of more or less constant study during 
a period of upwards of fifteen years. It gives only 
the more important events in the city's history, and 
while, it is hoped, satisfying the majority of readers, 



A SHORT H ISTORY OF NEWARK. 

serves as a guide to the few who may desire to go 
more exhaustively into the subject. 

Frank J. Urquhart. 
February 28, 1916, 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Pack 
CriRONOi.or.iCAL History of Nkwark xvii-xxxvi 

Ctiaptkr I. TiiK Story of its Early Days 1-68 

1 A Roadless Wilderness 5 

2 Earliest Settlements 6 

3 Their Reasons for Settling in New Jersey 10 

4 Like the Children of Israel 15 

5 A Bargain in Land 15 

6 Wealth of Settlers 20 

7 The Four Texts 22 

8 Newark the Last Theocracy of Puritans 23 

9 The New Jersey Indians 25 

10 The First Church a Fortress 26 

11 The Church a Precious Thing 28 

12 The Church as a Meeting House 30 

13 Drums Were Very Useful 30 

14 Filling in the Meadows 2>3 

15 Newark Settlers' Thanksgiving Hymn ^^ 

16 The Settlers Good Workmen S5 

17 Newark Ten Years Old 38 

18 The First Schoolmaster 39 

19 Forming New Settlements 41 

20 Roads Began as Foot-paths 41 

21 The First Industry 43 

22 Treat Returns to Con. cticut 43 

23 Treat in Battle 44 

24 Treat as Governor 46 

25 Settlers Were Able Men 47 

26 Newark, Yale and Princeton 48 

27 Military Park 52 

28 Newark in 1774 53 

20 Tn the War for Independence 5.S 



A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

Page 

30 Washington in Newark 56 

31 The Battle of Second River 59 

Z2 British Outrages 62 

33 The Fight at the "Four Corners" 65 

34 Camps and Hospitals 67 

Chapter II. The Story of its Awakentxg.. 69-97 

35 Newark's Long Sleep jt^ 

36 Newark the Village in 1800 jt, 

^7 The Old Tavern and Southern Trade 76 

38 The Stage Coach 79 

39 Broad Street in 1800 80 

40 High Street and Westward in 1800 81 

41 A Farm in Mulberry Street in 1815 82 

42 Quiet Sundays in Old Newark 83 

43 Newark Begins to Make Things 85 

44 Making Boots and Shoes 86 

45 An Farly Free School 86 

46 Newark a Village of Shoemakers 88 

47 The Stone Quarries 89 

48 Flour Mills and Saw Mills 90 

49 Iron Foundries ; Tool IMaking 90 

50 Seth Boyden, Inventor 91 

51 Boyden a Many-sided Genius 92 

52 Coaches, Coach-lace. .Saddlery 93 

53 Hats, Jewelry, Beer 93 

54 Power from Water and from Animals 94 

55 Ships. Whaling ; Canal , 95 

56 Eminent Men in Newark 95 

57 Newark Awake 07 

CiTAi'Ti.R ITT. TiTE Story 01.^ its Frospertty. .<^)'^)-^S7 

58 Newark Becomes a City ; 1836 103 

59 The First Railroad T05 

(V) The N'nung City Thrives 107 

X 



TABLE OF COX TEXTS 



Page 

6i Hard Times of 1837 no 

62 A Time of Prosperity in 

63 H ow They Fought Fires n [ 

64 The Old Hand Engines 1 12 

65 The Great Fire of 1836 t 13 

66 The First Steam Fire Engines n4 

67 One of the Old Schools 114 

()S> More Schools ns 

69 The Board of Education 116 

70 Overcoming an Old Idea 116 

7T When the Passaic Was Beautiful n7 

72 Cockloft ITall n8 

7C^ On the Eve of Civil War 121 

74 A Great Public Meeting 124 

75 Newark's Southern Trade 126 

76 Going to the Front 127 

77 Camp Frelinghuysen 128 

78 War's Serious Side 129 

79 General Kearny 130 

80 The First Horse Car Line 132 

81 Newark's Drinking Water 133 

^2 Old Wells and Reservoirs 133 

83 The Present Supply (^f Water 134 

84 Street Lighting 135 

85 The First Gas Light 136 

86 Edison in Newark 137 

H7 Edward Weston 138 

88 Making Electric Lighting Possible 138 

89 Industrial Expositions 140 

90 Transportation T43 

9T Port Newark Terminal 145 

92 Educational Advancement 146 

93 Approach of the "City Beautiful" 148 

94 Mayors Since Civil War Times 149 

95 A Cosmopolitan Population 151 



A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

Page 

96 Mayor Haynes and the Water Supply 152 

97 The Spanish-American War 153 

98 Band Concerts; Playgrounds; Meadow Reclamation 154 

99 1916 Celebration Preparations I55 

TOO Newark. Mother of Towns 156 

Historic Srors kn Newark 159-171 

Index 173 



xu 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Statue of Puritan in Fairmount Cemetery 2 

Henry Hudson Exploring Newark lUiy, 1609. ... 4 
Map showing principal settlements from Maine to 
the Delaware at the time of Newark's settle- 
ment, 1666 7 

Treat and Companions selecting the town site. ... 14 

Early map showing distribution of Home Lots. . 18 

Going to church in the infant settlement 27 

A "Burning Day" in the settlement 31 

Portrait of Aaron Burr 49 

Gathering of Patriots at County Court House,, 

1774 54 

Portrait of Alexander Macwhorter 57 

Trinity Church as a Soldiers' Hospital 60 

The Martyrdom of Justice Joseph Hedden 63 

A Skirmish at the "Four Corners," with a mod- 
ern background 66 

Seth Boy den. 1788- 1870. From a bust in the 

Public Library 70 

^larket Street, east, from Mulberry, 1800 74 

In Stage Coach Days, at Market and Broad Streets 78 
Broad Street, south from Market, about 1825. . 84 
Newark from the Passaic by Night — an impres- 
sion 100 

Newark's first mayor, William Flalsey 102 

"Lower Green" or "Military Common,'' now 

known as Military Park 1 19 

Northwest corner of Market and Droad Street, in 

Civil War Times 125 



CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY 
OF NEWARK 



CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY 
OF NEWARK 

1666 — Newark was settled. 

1667 — It was agreed by all planters and inhabitants that they 
should l)c ruled and governed by such magistrates as they 
should annually choose among themselves. 

1668 — The first church, called "Meeting house" by the set- 
tlers, was built. It was 26 feet wide, 36 feet long, and fronted 
on Broad Street, a little south of Branford place. In 1708 a 
second church was erected, which stood a little further north. 
The present building, which stands on the other side of Broad 
Street, was begun in 1787, and opened for public worship on 
the first of Jaiuiar}, 1791. On its completion, the old second 
church was converted into a court house, for which purpose 
it was used until 1807. 

1668 — First General Assembly was held in Elizabethtown, 
delegates from Newark being Robert Treat and Samuel 
Swainc. 

1668, May 20th — Commissioners of the Town of Newark 
and Elizabethtown met at "Divident Hill," to fix the bound- 
aries between the settlements. 

1668 — The first grist mill was built and stood on the north 
side of First River or Millbrook, near the junction of Clay 
and High Streets. 

i66g to 1672 — Two courts were hpld annually, verdict being 
by jury of six men. 

1670 — Newark's first hotel. Located in the home of Thomas 
Johnson, on the northeast corner of Broad and Walnut streets, 
on the site of the present Grace Episcopal Church. It was 
called an ''ordinary." 



C1IRU\(JL0G1CAL HISTORY OP NEWARK. 

1672 to 1675 — Four courts wore annually held. In the latter 
\ear, the whole province was placed under county and other 
courts, and the rules of the selectmen terminated. 

1673 — Newark's population included 86 men. 

1673, September 6 — It was ordered, "in consideration of the 
present dangers" — unrest of the Indians — that every ^nan in 
town, under sixty and over sixteen, should meet together with 
their arms. 

1673 — New York surrendered to the Dutch, and the subjuba- 
lion of New Jersey followed. 

A transfer of allegiance to the Republic of Holland was 
demanded of the people of Newark, and it appears that sev- 
enty-three took the oath, eleven being absent. 

1674 — By Treaty of Westminster, New Jersey was restored 
to England, and Philip Carteret returned as Governor. 

1675 — Trouble feared with the Indians. It proved ground- 
less. 

1675 — The church was fitted up for a defense, the men 
of the town working in turn ; two flankers were placed at the 
corners and the wall between the lath and outside filled with 
stones. 

1676 — The first school was established. John Catlin was 
appointed schoolmaster. 

1676 — Newark's first Shade Tree Commission. Extract from 
the town minute book : "February 6. The Town, seeing some 
trees spoiled by barking or (Hherwise the Town had agreed 
that no green tree within the town as is marked With N. 
shall be barked or felled, or otherwise killed under the Penalty 
of Ten Shillings so killed." 

1679 — A watch was ordered to be kept in the night and one 



CHRONOLOGICAL IIISTOKY OP NEWARK. 

fourth part of the town shoiihl take turns carrying arms to 
church. Tliis was during the time when Sir Ednunul Andros, 
Governor of New York, asserted authority over New Jersey 
on behalf of the Duke of York. The people of Newark, in 
common with other settlements, resented Andres' interference. 

1679, March 29 — The town having met together, gave their 
positive answer to the Governor of New York, that they had 
taken the oath of allegiance to the King, and fidelity to the 
present Government, and until they had sufficient order from 
his Majesty, would stand the same. 

1682 — Newark had a population of about 500, having 10,000 
acres of town lands and 40.000 acres of outlyingplantations." 

1683 — The first poor person necessary to provide for. 

1695 — The first saw mill was comimenced. 

1696, December loth — By virtue of a patent granted by the 
Lords Proprietors of East New Jersey, the public lands and 
streets had been vested in John Curtiss, John Treat, Theoph- 
ilus Pierson and Robert Young. In 1804, by act of Legisla- 
ture, this trust estate was declared to be invested in the inhabi- 
tants of the township. The property consisted. of the old 
burying ground, Washington Park, Military Park, the water- 
ing place and the public streets as then laid out. 

1698 — First tan yard established by Azariah Crane. 

1708 — Second church building erected. 

1714 — First school house provided this year or a little earlier. 

1719 — The assessment of a town rate for the support of the 
poor commenced. 

1721 — Free stone was quarried for market. 

1736 — Cider making well established. 

1745-46— Two great riots — jail broken open by mobs, and 



CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OL XLWARK. 

persons held by land suits in favor of the English proprietors, 
set at liberty. 

1746 — Trinity Chnreh was eompleted. 

1/47 — College of N. J., afterwards Princeton College, started 
at Elizabethtown, removed to Newark in 1748 — college re- 
mained in Newark about eight years, with Rev. Aaron Burr, 
as president. 

1756, February 6 — Aaron Burr, afterward vice-president of 
the United States, was born in Newark, just before his father 
moved to Princeton. 

1761 — First lodge of Free Masons in New Jersey — St. 
John's, established. 

1765 — An Act of Assembly was passed authorizing the con- 
struction of a road and ferries over the Passaic and Hacken- 
sack to connect with the road previously existing from Bergen 
Point to Paulus Hook. This was the only direct road to New 
York, by land, for many years. The present plank road fol- 
lows, very nearly, the route then constructed. 

1774 — The first Newark Academy founded. 

1776, November — Washington was stationed in Newark with 
an army of 3,000 men, for five days. 

1780 — The population of Newark was about 1,000. One 
hundred and forty-one dwelling houses, thirty-eight in limits 
of what was afterward known as North Ward, fifty in the 
South Ward, twenty-eight in East Ward, and twenty-five in 
West Ward. 

1780 — Battle of Springfield. At that time, part of Spring- 
field belonged to the City of Newark. 

1780 — The Academy referred to above, which stood in 



CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OP NEWARK. 

Washington Park, was burned by the Engbsh troops. IMartyr- 
dom of Justice Joseph Iledden. 

1/88 — First Fourth of July celebration in Newark of which 
there is record. Parade was industrial rather than military, 
the following trades being represented : Tanners and curriers, 
stone cutters, masons, scythe-makers, blacksmiths, coach- 
makers, wheelwrights, silversmiths, saddle and harness makers, 
weavers, dyers and fullers, ship carpenters. 

1790 — Newark's first industry established about this time — 
shoemaking. 

1791 — Present First Presbyterian Church completed. 

1791 — Newark's first newspaper, Wood's Gazette, started 
May 13. 

1791 — First hanging of record. William Jones, for the mur- 
der of Samuel Shotwell. Services held in First Church just 
before the execution, with sermon preached by the pastor. 

1792 — In this year, or a little later, first free schools in 
Newark and probably in the United States, opened by Moses 
N. Combs, Newark's pioneer manufacturer. 

1792 — First bridges over Passaic and Hackensack Rivers 
completed. 

1792 — The second Newark Academy established. 

1796 — Sentinel of Freedom established. It dcnoimccd 
slavery. New Jersey being a slave State. 

1797 — At a meeting held in Newark, in May, the directors of 
the Society for the Promotion of Useful Arts, attended by 
Alexander Hamilton, it was decided to locate the town of 
Paterson (named after the then Governor of the State), on 
the banks of the Passaic. They appointed two of their num- 
ber to fix the precise spot. 



CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

1797 — Newark's first band of music, "Composed of our own 
citizens," took part in the Fourth of July celebration. 

1798— Citizens, through the First Church, contributed $455 
and 160 pairs of shoes, in aid of the yellow fever sufferers 
of New York City. 

1798— President Adams, the first of the name, passed 
through Newark three times, usually making short stops. 

1800 — Newark spoken of in newspapers as "the most flour- 
ishing town in the State." 

1800 or thereabouts— Under a special law, to ascertain the 
exact, original boundaries of the principal and most ancient 
streets of Newark, every encroachment beyond private prop- 
erty lines, was moved back. Broad street was thus restored 
to its original width, 132 feet, except at Military Park; Mar- 
ket street to 88 and Washington street to 66 feet. 

1800 — The first company to supply Newark with water was 
chartered. The principal supply of water came from springs 
and wells located in what is now the Eighth, Eleventh and 
Fifteenth Wards. There were in all seventy-three wells and 
springs. Water was collected in small reservoirs about 150 
feet south from the line of what is now Seventh avenue. 

1801 — ^At a mass meeting of citizens rules were drawn up to 
prevent unlawful residence of free negroes or such as falsely 
declared themselves to be free. To prevent negro slaves from 
meeting together in an unlawful manner. To prevent the 
unlawful absence of Newark slaves from their owners after 
ten o'clock at night. 

1801 — Committee on Sabbath observance announces that 
after March 10, it will stop all gaming, horse racing and other 



CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEWARK. 



forms of Sabbath breaking such as unnecessary travel by 
stages, or in any other way. 

1801 — First Baptist Church estahHshcd. 

1801 — Jewelry was manufactured by "Epaphras Hinsdale." 

1803 — Female Charitable x^id Society organized. 

1804 — Newark Banking and Insurance C(Mnpany established 
first bank in Newark. 

1804, February — By Act of the Legislature, all children of 
slave parents, born after the 4th of July, of that year, were 
declared free, but those who were born previous to that date, 
were still in bondage, and, accordingly,, there were sixteen 
male and fifteen female slaves for life. The town plot con- 
tained 844 houses, 207 mechanics' shops, five public buildings, 
three lumber yards, four quarries. There were eight churches, 
nine clergymen, ten physicians, eighty-one farmers, fourteen 
lawyers, sixteen school teachers, thirty-four merchants and 
five druggists. 

1806 — Newark was noted for its cider, its quarries, manu- 
facturing of carriages, coaches, lace and shoes. One-third 
of the inhabitants, it is said, were constantly employed in the 
manufacturing of shoes alone. 

1806 — First IMethodist Episcopal Church established. 

1807 — At a mass meeting to protest against British outrages 
on American commerce, a committee was appointed to draw 
up suitable resolutions of protest. A copy of this document 
was sent to President Thomas Jefferson. 

1807 — Rev. Dr. Alexander McWhorter, Newark's sturdy old 
Revolutionary pastor, died ; July 20. 

1808 — Second Presbyterian Church established. 

1810 — Hatting trade established by William Rankin. 



CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

1810 — Population, probably of county, given as 8,008. 

181 1 — County Court House built on present site of Grace 
Episcopal Church. 

181 1 — Newark Fire Insurance Company incorporated. 

1812 — Essex Brigade of militia ordered to detail, arm and 
equip 441 men and officers, as Essex's quota of the 5,000 calleil 
for from the State; March 17. 

1812 — During the war, a draft of every seventh man was 
made of the people of Newark. A volunteer company of 
riflemen was also formed, of which Theodore Frelinghuysen 
took command, and when New York was supposed to be in 
danger, nearly one thousand men from Newark gave active 
aid in throwing up entrenchments on Brooklyn Heights. 

1815 — Under the provisions of an Act to authorize the inhab- 
itants of the Township of Newark to build or purchase a poor 
house, the farm of x\aron Johnson was purchased, and in 
1818 five acres of land adjoining were added to this farm. 
This property was known as the "Poor House Farm." 

1819 to 1833 — Joint meetings were held in the session house 
of the First Presbjterian Church. 

1819 — Seth Boyden makes first patent leather ever manu- 
factured in this country. 

1820 — Population was 6,507. 

1821 — The total amount realized from taxes for the year, 
including dog tax, was $3,184. 

1823 — By Act of the Legislature the following property was 
vested in the township: Orange Park, Lombardy Park, por- 
tions of Lincoln Park and parts of Washington, Market and 
Mulberry streets. 



CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

1824 — First Roman Catholic Church. St. John's, established. 

1826 — There were still living in Newark 161 inhabitants who 
were alive during the W^ar of Independence, fifty-six of whom 
were engaged in that war. 

1826 — Population of Newark was 8.017; of these 7.237 were 
within and 780 outside of the township ; there were 491 colored 
people. 

1826, July 4 — The people of Newark held a jubilee, to com- 
memorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. 

1826, July 4 — Seth Boyden discovered process of making 
malleable iron. 

1830 — A much traveled man says of Newark, that after visit- 
ing many of the cities and towns of the United States, he does 
not believe there is any community in the Union where so 
many inhabitants are to be found in the same number of 
houses. "The people are remarkably industrious," he declares ; 
"we find them hammering away at their trades from five 
o'clock in the morning until ten or twelve at night." 

1832 — Whaling Company incorporated. 

1832 — Newark Daily Advertiser, now Star-Eagle, estab- 
lished. 

1833 — First bath house in Newark of which there is any 
record, in the New Jersey Museum, Market Street. 

1833 — There were 1,542 dwelling houses in Newark, as 
against 141 in 1777. 

1833 — A visitor from Schenectady, N. Y.. who had been in 
Newark ten years before, writes that he "found things won- 
derfully altered ; entire new streets laid out, crowded with 
tenements ; elegant ranges of buildings put up several stories 

XXV 



CHRONOLOGICAL HLSTORY OF NEWARK. 

in height, and its strong arm of industry visible on whichever 
side the visitor turns his eyes." 

1833 — President Andrew Jackson visits Newark, accom- 
panied by Vice-President Van Rurcn, afterwards president. 
On June 14th. 

1834 — New Jersey Railroad opened. 

1834 — Newark was made a port of entry. ^ 

1834 — First Dutch Reformed Church established. 
1834 — ^First attempt to number the buildings in their respect- 
ive streets. A private enterprise, conducted by Jonathan Rey- 
nolds, of Halsey street. House owners to pay for it, at a 
rate of about ten cents a number. 
1835 — Estimated population : 

Free white Americans 10.542 

Irish population (about) 6,000 

English and Scotch 1,000 

German (about) 300 

Free people of color 359 

Total 18,201 

1835 — Morris and Essex Railroad opened. 

T835 — Exports to southern ports of the U. S., South America 
and West Indies over $8,000,000. 

1835 — There were twelve hotels in Newark. 

1835 — There were eighteen churches in Newark. 

1835 — Whaling vessel from Newark returned after voyage 
of twenty-seven months with a cargo of 3,000 barrels of whale 
oil and 15,000 pounds of whalebone. 

1835 — Newark Medical Association organized. 

1836 — Newark incorporated as a city. 

xxvi 



CHRONOLOGICAL lUSTORY OF NEWARK 



1836 — Population was 19,732. 

1836 — Common Council engaged room in Newark Academy ; 
meetings were afterwards held at the Academy, Park House 
and Market House. Subsequently, church at t6 Clinton street, 
was engaged for one year, for the use of the city authorities 
for four days a week. 

1836 — Streets of Newark were lighted with oil lamps. 
1836 — Number of slaves in Newark, twenty. 
1836 — A school system for poor children established. 
1836— City was divided into four wards, known as the North, 
South, East and West Wards, four aldermen representing a 
Ward. 

1836, August 24 — Corner stone of the Court House and City 
Hall laid. 

1837 — Fire Department : 
Fire Engine No. i — First Presbyterian Church. 
" No. 2 — Trinity Church. 
No. 3— Hill Street. 
" " No. 4 — Lombardy Park. 

" No. 5—106 Market Street. 
" " No. 6 — Railroad Depot, Market Street. 

" "' No. 7 — Hedenberg's Factory. in Plane 

Street. 
Hook & Ladder No. i— 108 Market Street (Museum). 
Hose Company No. i— to6 Market Street (Aluseum). 
1837 — First German Presbyterian Church established. 42 
Bank street. 

1837— Common Council met in Council Chamber. Museum 
Building. 

1837 — Alorris Canal opened. 



CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

1838 — First High School estabh'shed in Newark. 
1838— Court House and City Hall dedicated. 
1840 — Still three slaves in Newark, 
1843 — First public school house erected. 
1844 — Mt. Pleasant Cemetery incorporated. 
1845 — N. J. Historical Society incorporated. 
1845 — Registered and enrolled tonnage, shipping 9,458 tons 
Steamboats and boats under 20 tons 7,i39 tons 

Total 16,597 tons 

1845 — New Alms House erected and about twenty acres of 
the farm on the west side of the Elizabeth Road were sold. 

1845 — Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company organized. 

1845 — Mayor and Common Council entered into a contract 
with the Aqueduct Company for furnishing a full and suffi- 
cient supply of water for extinguishing fires, for washing, 
working, cleaning and trying the fire engines, hose and other 
apparatus used — to be used for the extinguishing of fires only. 
This was the first water contract the city entered into. 

1846 — American Insurance Co., incorporated. 

1846, December 25 — Newark Gas Light Co., commenced the 
manufacture of gas, and the city streets were lighted with it. 

1847 — Newark Library Association chartered. 

1848 — Protestant Foster Home established. 

1848 — A Fifth Ward was created and the aldermen divided 
into two classes— two to be elected annually in each ward for 
a period of two years. 

1848 to 1853 — Common Council used hall located on third 
story of Library Building, Market street. 



CtlKOXOLOGICAL HISTORY OP XEll'.lRK 



1848 — First Jewish Synagogue, Congregation B'Nai Jes- 
hurun, established. 

1848-1849 — Influx of German political fugitives following the 
collapse of the Revolution of the Grand Duchy of Baden. 

1849 — The Newark Plank Road and Ferry Company incor- 
porated. 

1849 — Newark Orphan Asylum incorporated. 

1849-1850 — ^Cholera in Newark — 148 deaths. 

185 1 — Present school system established under a law^ author- 
izing the organization of a Board of Education. 

1851 — Sixth and Seventh Wards created, the aldermen being 
divided into two classes and the'^eafter one had to be elected 
annually. 

1852 — Tw^o aldermen representing a ward. 

1853-54 — Market building over canal erected — second story 
of said building was used for Council Chamber, connuittee 
rooms, fire alarm bell, and east end of department for police 
station and city prison. 

1853 — Eighth Ward was created. 

1853 — Newark Clinton Plank Road Co., incorporated — Plank 
Road construction extending from Newark to Irvington. 

1853 — St. Mary's Orphan Asylum incorporated. 

1854 — Newark Catholic Institute incorporated. 

1854 — Ninth Ward created. 

1855 — Fairmount Cemetery incorporated. 

1855 — First of present system of evening schools established. 

1855 — ^Woodland Cemetery incorporated. 

1855 — Firemen's Insurance Company incorporated. 

1855 — Green Street German American School incorporated. 

1856 — Tenth and Eleventh Wards created. 



CHRONOLOGICAL lUSTORY OF NEWARK. 

1857 — Newark granted a new charter. 

1857 — N. J. Freie Zeitung established. 

1857 — Exempt Firemen's Association organized. 

1858-1859 — Notice of fire was given from the tower, by 
waving a red flag in the day time, and a red light at night. 

1859 — First horse street railway company incorporated. 

1859, September 14 — Arion Singing Society organized. 

i860, March 20 — Newark Aqueduct Board created by an 
Act of Legislature. This Act authorized the Mayor and Com- 
mon Council to purchase the property of the Newark Aqueduct 
Company including all their rights, franchises, lands and 
property, real and personal, for the sum of $150,000 — convey- 
ance of the real estate consisted of eighteen tracts, including 
ihe Branch Brook, Spring lots and Mill properties along the 
Mill 1)rook, several smaller tracts and the reservoir lot at 
Springlield and South Orange avenues. 

i860- 1865 — During the Civil war, Newark not only sent 
thousands of men to the front, but was one of the main work- 
shops of the North, turning out arms, clothing, etc., for the 
use of the soldiers engaged in the war. 

i860 — Number of buildings supplied with city water was 
1,636 — 1,371 were dwellings, and 265 for purposes other than 
domestic. 

i860— Twelfth Ward created. 

1861, February 21 — Abraham Lincoln in Newark. 

1861 — Thirteenth Ward created. 

1861 — Hebrew Aid Society organized. 

1861 — On May 3rd, First Brigade leaves for Washington. 

1861 — Steam fire engines introduced into Newark. 

1864 — St. Peter's Orphan Asylum founded. 



CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OP NLWARK. 

1864, Scptcnilx'i- J4— City Hall, corner Broad and William 
streets, opened. 

1865— Y. M. C. A. organized. 

1865 to 1870— Part of the city water supply was furnished 
by the Morris Canal Co. 

1866— There was held a Bi-Centcnnial Celebration of the 
settlement of Newark. 

1866— G. A. R. Post No. I, Dep't N. J., organized. 

1866, July 4— N. J. Home Disabled Soldiers, Seventh avenue, 
opened. 

1867 — St. Barnabas' Hospital incorporated. 

1867 — St. Michael's Hospital chartered. 

1868, May 10— Boys' Lodging tiouse and Children's Aid 
Society organized. 

1868, January 15— N. J. State Association Baseball Players 
organized, 

1868, March 17— Newark Board of Trade founded. 

1868 — German Hospital incorporated. 

1869 — Newark Water Works at Belleville completed. 

1869 — -St. Vincent's Academy founded. 

1870 — Newark City Home established. 

1870— City Dtispensary moved from basement in City Hall, 
William street, to Centre Market. 

1871 — Fourteenth and Fifteenth Wards created. 

1871, September— Women's Christian Association organized 
1872 — Sunday Call established. 

1872, April 18— Home for the Friendless organized. 
1872 — Newark Industrial Exhibition. 

1872, August— Fssex County Hospital, 63 Camden street, 
organized. 



CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OP NEWARK. 



1873 — Seth Boyden Statute Association organized. 

1873 — Prudential Insurance Company organized. 

1874 — Newark Homeopathic Medical Union organized. 

1879, July — Salvage Corps organized. 

1880 — Eye and Ear Infirmary incorporated. 

1880, December 28 — Unveiling monument of Phil Kearny. 
Generals Grant, Sherman and McClellan present. 

1882 — First public arc lamps introduced. 

1882 — Free drawing school established. 

1882 — Newark City Hospital, 116 Fairmount a\enue. opened. 

1882, March 25 — St. Benedict's College chartered. 

1883 — Newark Evening News established. 

1885 — Newark Technical School established. . 

1885 — County Park System established. 

1886 — Old burying ground given over for public purposes, 
and bones of settlers removed to Fairmount Cemetery, in 
this and years immediately following. 

1887 — Hebrew Orphan Asylum opened at 22,2 Mulberry 
street. 

1887, ]\Iarch — Newark District Telegraph Co., organized, 

1888 — Free Public Library incorporated. 

1889 — Dedication of Newark Aqueduct property at Branch 
Brook for public park. 

1889 — Gottfried Krueger Home for Aged Men organized. 

1890, May 14 — Unveiling monument of Seth Boyden. 

1890 — Present water plant purchased by the cit}. 

1892 — First of new Prudential buildings erected. 

1893 — Number of wards reduced to nine. 

1894 — First electric street cars on Broad street. 

1895 — Number of wards increased to fifteen. 



CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

1896 — ]\Jovement of purification of Passaic River started by 
Newark Board of Trade. 

1898, ]\Iay 2 — First Regiment New Jersey Volunteers for 
Spanish-American \\'ar left Newark for Sea Girt; returned 
home September 26. 

1900 — St. James' Hospital incorporated. 

1901 — New City Hospital completed. 

1904 — Shade Tree Commission established. 

1906 — Establishment Municipal Bureau of Statistical Infor- 
mation. 

1906, November — First automobile fire engine introduced in 
Newark. 

1906, December 20— Opening of the new City Hall. 

1906 — Number of wards increased to sixteen. 

1907 — New Court House completed. 

1907 — First city playgrounds. 

1907 — Small Board of Education established. 

1907 — Smoke Abatement Department established. 

1908 — Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company's new build- 
ing completed. 

1908— Municipal Lighting Plant established in new City 
Hall. 

1908 — Civil Service adopted — method of adoption declared 
unconstitutional. 

1909 — Newark Museum Association incorporated. 

1909 — Municipal Employment Bureau established. 

1909 — First automobile ambulance introduced. 

1910 — Civil Service adopted by the City of Newark — by a 
vote of the people. 

1910 — First municipal dental clinics established. 



CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

1910, November 26 — High street factory fire, causing a loss 
of twenty-seven lives. 

1910 — Firemen's Insurance Company's new building com- 
pleted. 

191 1, May 30 — Unveiling by ex-President Roosevelt under 
auspices of Lincoln Post, No. 11, G. A. R., of Lincoln Monu- 
ment at Court House Plaza, bequeathed to the City of Newark 
by Amos H. Van Horn. 

191 1 — First City Plan Commission appointed. 

191 1, November 26 — Opening of Manhattan and Pludson 
Terminal Electric High Speed Line, Park Place and Centre 
street. 

1912, October 30 — Opening of 6th Precinct Police Station. 
1912 — Civil Service adopted by School District of Newark 

by a vote of the people. 

1912, November 2 — Unveiling of Washington Monument, 
Washington Park, bequeathed to the City hy Amos H. Van 
Horn. 

1913 — Erection new Board of Health Building, William 
street. 

1913 — Erection of new Alms House, South Orange. 

1913 — Erection Nurses' Home, City Hospital. 

1914, August — Sub-committees of the Committee of One 
Hundred selected. 



TOWNSHIPS CREATED BY LAW OUT OF THE 
TERRITORY INCLUDED IN THE ORIGINAL 
SETTLEMENT OF NEWARK. 
1793 — Springfield Township created. Set off from Eliza- 

bethtown and Newark and inchuling the territory now com- 



CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

posing the Townships of Springfield and New Providence, in 
Union County, Millburn and a part of the Township of Liv- 
ingston, in Essex County. 

1798 — Caldwell Township created. Set off from Newark 
and Acquackanock and including the territory now composing 
the Township of Caldwell and a part of the Township of Liv- 
ingston. 

1806 — Orange Township created. Set off from Newark and 
including the territory now composing the City of Orange and 
a part of what was formerly the Township of Clinton. 

1812 — Bloomneld Township created. Set off from Newark 
and including the territory now composing the Townships of 
Belleville and Bloomfield. 

1813— Livingston Towaiship created. Set off from Spring- 
field and Caldwell. 

1834 — Clinton Township created. Set off from Newark, 
Orange, Elizabeth and Union. 

1838 — Supplement to aforesaid Act. Part of Clinton rean- 
nexed to Orange. 

1839 — Belleville Township created. Set off from Bloomfield. 

1852 — Boundary line altered between Newark and Clinton. 

1857 — Millburn Township created. Set off from Springfield. 

1861 — South Orange Township created. Set off from Clin- 
ton and Orange. 

1862 — Fairmount Township created. Set off from Orange, 
Caldwell and Livingston. 

1863— Part of Millburn set off to South Orange. 

1863 — Supplement altering lines and changing name of Fair- 
mount to West Orange. 

1863 — East Orange Township created. Set off from Orange. 



CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

1869 — Montclair Township created. Set off from Bloom- 
field. 

1869 — Boundary line altered between Newark and Clinton. 
1871 — Woodside divided between Belleville and Newark. 
1874 — Franklin Township created. 

ANNEXATIONS. 
1869 — Portion of Clinton Township annexed to 3d, 6th and 
13th Wards. 

1871 — Annexation of Woodside. 

1897 — Annexation western part of Clinton Township. 
1902 — Annexation eastern part of Clinton Township. 
1905 — Annexation of Vailsburg. 



THE STORY OF ITS 
EARLY DAYS 




STATUE OF PURITAN 
FAIRMOUNT CEMETERY. 



CHAPTER I. 
THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS 

The people who founded Newark, New Jersey, in 
Alay, 1666, came from four different towns in Con- 
necticut. They were of English parentage and most 
of them English horn. Their leader so far as mate- 
rial and earthly things were concerned was Robert 
Treat. Their spiritual leader, the pastor of the flock, 
was the Rev. Abraham Pierson. Treat first came 
to Elizabethtown late in 1665, or very early in 1666, 
a few months after it was founded. There he saw 
Governor Carteret, who had come from England 
to take charge of all the upper half of New Jersey. 
The Governor was anxious to get settlers. 

Except for a few small settlements on the Jersey 
shores of the Delaware and Hudson rivers, what 
we now know as New Jersey was then a wilderness, 
inhabited only by a few hundred Indians and by 
wild animals and birds. On the Delaware the towns 
were little more than forts, for the white people 
sometimes fought each other there, and fierce and 
warlike Indians lived a short distance away in what 
is now known as Pennsylvania. 




y^wml^^^'' 



THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 5 

1. A Roadless Wilderness. 

From the Hudson to the Delaware there were 
no roads for white men ; nothing except narrow 
Indian paths from the hills to the big rivers and the 
salt water, and the trails of deer, bear and wolves 
leading to the springs where animals came to drink. 
Some of the Indian paths were well worn and quite 
easy to follow. They ran from the seashore or from 
the Hudson, Passaic or Raritan rivers over the 
Orange mountains and there joined other paths that 
led on across the country to points high up on the 
Delaware. The Indians had use for these paths 
because many lived near the upper Delaware in win- 
ter and in the summer camped by the sea. When 
Newark's first settlers came they found huge piles 
of oyster, clam and other shells along the bay shore, 
which showed very plainly that one of the reasons 
why Indians traveled so far across the country was 
to get shell fish to eat after living all winter chiefly 
on game and Indian corn. There were also several 
Indian paths east and west between the two great 
rivers, Hudson and Delaware, with many smaller 
and tributary trails. The close and painstaking 
observations of New Jersey archaeologists and eth- 
nologists prove that there was constant travel of 



6 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

wandering red men across the State from the earhest 
times. The main Hne of the Pennsylvania Raih'oad 
from New Brunswick to the Delaware follows 
closely the great trail of the Indians, which after 
the coming of the white man was widened until it 
became a highroad and then the main thoroughfare 
for stage coaches between New York and Phila- 
delphia. 

2. Earliest Settlements. 

The Dutch, until a year before Newark was 
founded, had owned for more than forty years — 
since the establishment of the Dutch settlement at 
Manhattan — much of the land on both sides of the 
lower Hudson. There was a tiny village near 
Bergen Point ; and there were a few farms here and 
there where Bayonne, Jersey City, Hoboken and 
Hackensack now are. A few Dutchmen and their 
families had also made small farms in the upper 
Passaic valley, all the way up to what are now Pat- 
erson and Little Falls, and even farther on, Towaco 
and thereabouts. A few more were scattered along 
the lower Hackensack. The Indians came to these 
farm houses to sell the skins of animals they killed. 
The skins wer^ then taken to New York City, which 
was called by the red men Manhattan, and by the 




/V/1//V£r To m^ Df^LAWAf^£r ' 



A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 



Dutchmen New Amsterdam. There the skins were 
sold by the farmers and traders to the Dutch West 
India Company, whose agents packed them in 
great bundles, put them in the holds of clumsy little 
ships and carried them to Holland. 

It was the Dutch West India Company that 
induced people to come from the old world and live 
in New York and New Jersey, to gather furs from 
the Indians, and make farms. The Dutch thought 
that all the land along the Hudson was very valuable, 
and to-day we understand readily enough how far- 
seeing they were. 

Thirty- four years before Newark was founded 
the West India Company bought all of Stateri 
Island, and what is now Jersey City and Hoboken 
for goods whose equivalent in the money of to-day 
would be about $10,400. They thought this a great 
deal of money then, little as it seems to us now when 
we recall that Staten Island alone is to-day worth 
many, many millions. The Dutchman who sold 
Hoboken, Jersey City and Staten Island to the West 
India Company bought it from the Indians for a 
few coats, hats, guns and groceries. His name was 
Michael Pan, for whom Paulus Hook, now Jersey 
City and Communipaw, were named. 

The English had for some time wished to hold 



THE STORY OF TTS EARLY DAYS. g 

all this fine country, and lawyers and others in 
London said that the ground belonged to them. At 
last, in 1664, soldiers came from England and took 
Manhattan by force, and when they captured the 
city, the entire country which lay between Connecti- 
cut and New' Jersey, including all of New Jersey, 
became theirs. This put an end to Dutch rule here. 
Most of the Dutch farmers and traders, however, 
stayed on their farms in spite of the change of gov- 
ernment. The descendants of some of them are 
living to this day in Jersey cities and towns on the 
very land w^here their forefathers settled more than 
two centuries and a half ago. 

Elizabethtown had only four or fi^•e houses when 
Robert Treat, the man sent out from Connecticut 
to find a settling place for the Newark colony, saw 
it early in 1666. Philadelphia was an Indian vil- 
lage; Trenton was not founded until sixteen years 
after; New York was not as large as Belleville is 
to-day ; and children w ho were born among the 
Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth, Massachusetts, soon 
after their coming in 1620 — those wdio had survived 
the hardships of the early days — w'ere just in the 
prime of life. 

Robert Treat had one or tw^o other men with him 
^^'hen he came from Connecticut to look for a place 



10 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

for a settlement. These men were sent out by people 
living in the four towns of Milford, Branford, New 
Haven and Guilford. They first went in boats to 
the Delaware river, examined the country along its 
banks and came near choosing for their new settle- 
ment the ground on which Burlington, New Jersey, 
now stands. But they made up their minds that it 
was too far from the old home in Connecticut and 
from New York, then the only strong English settle- 
ment for hundreds of miles along the coast. On 
the Delaware, also, they would have had Indians 
all around them and only the few white people in 
the forts along the lower Delaware near them. They 
would have been almost alone in a great wilderness. 

3. Their Reasons for Settling in New Jersey. 

The Newark men went much further away from 
the other Puritans than any other New England 
town builders had gone before. There were at least 
two reasons for this : First, they wished to keep 
near the seashore; they did not dare settle in the 
interior for fear of Indians, and they could find 
no place that suited them on the New England coast 
that was not taken already or was not too near other 
settlements nor too near large tribes of Indians. 
Second, as thev went down the coast to find what 



THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. ii 

they wanted, they had to go beyond what is now 
New York State because ahiiost the only white 
people in it were Dutch, with whom they had been 
at war two or three years before. 

There was perhaps still a third reason for their 
coming to New Jersey. When the Pilgrim Fathers 
came over in the Mayfloiver they did not intend to 
land on the bleak New England coast. They 
planned to make their homes on the banks of the 
Delaware. But as the Mayflozvcv drew near the 
shores of this continent the winds drove her far up 
the coast. When the Puritans found themselves in 
Massachusetts Bay they were much disappointed 
and turned southward again, once more trying to 
reach the Delaware. But the winds were still 
against them. They never saw the "promised land" 
on the Delaware of which they had dreamed, and of 
which extravagant praise had been written by men 
who sought to get rich Englishmen to buy it from 
the Indians. The Mayflower was again beaten back 
around Cape Cod, and the Puritans, at last feeling 
that God meant them to stay where they were, went 
ashore and founded Plymouth. It may have been 
that the Newark settlers, remembefiing that forty 
years before, the first Puritan immigrants had 
wished to set up their new home on the Delaware, 



12 . A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

thought they would themselves carry out the old 
plan. 

For over twenty years before Newark was 
founded English adventurers had often visited the 
shores of what is now New Jersey, and had sent or 
taken home enthusiastic accounts of what they had 
seen. Their narratives were often highly colored. 
They tried to make these new lands as attractive as 
possible to induce settlers to come out from the 
mother country. One of these accounts is about 
the Jersey side of the Delaware. It was written by 
Master Evelyn in a letter to an English nobleman, 
was printed and, it is believed, quite widely circu- 
lated. It may have been seen by some of the men 
who were to found Newark, and its glowing narra- 
tive might readily have induced them to explore 
the Delaware river region. It is easy to see that 
the writer w^as more anxious to bring settlers to the 
country that he describes than he was to give a 
faithful description. Part of the letter is as follows : 

'T saw there an infinite quantity of bustards, 
swans, geese and fowl, covering the shoares as 
within the like of a multitude of pigeons, and store 
of turkies, of jivhich I tried one to weigh forty and 
sixe pounds. There is much variety and plenty of 
delicate fresh and sea-fish, and shell-fish, and whales 



THE STORY OF TTS EARLY DAYS. 13 

or grampus; elks, deere that bring three young at 
a time, and the woods bestrewed many months with 
chestnuts, waUnuts and mast of several sorts to feed 
them and the hogs that would increase exceedingly. 
There the barren grounds have four kinds of grapes 
and many mulberries with ash, elms and the tallest 
and greatest pines and pitch trees that I have seen. 
There are cedars, and cypresse and sassafras, with 
wilde fruits, pears, wilde berries, pine apples and the 
dainty parsemenas [persimmons]. And there is no 
question but what almonds and other fruits of Spain 
will prosper, as in Virginia; And (which is a good 
comfort) in four and twenty hours you may send 
or goe by sea to New England or Virginia, with a 
faire winde. You may have cattle, and from the 
Indians two thousand bushels of corn at twelve 
pence a bushel, so as victuals are there cheaper and 
better than can be transported. 

"If my lord will bring with him three hundred 
men or more, there is no doubt but that he may doe 
very well and grow rich, for it is a most pure health- 
full air, and such pure, wholesome springs, rivers 
and waters, as delightful! as can be seen, with so 
many varieties of severall flowers, trees and forests 
for swine, so many fair risings and prospects, all 
green and verdant, and Marvland a good friend and 




m 



^— :w! 



THE STORY OF TTS EARLY DAYS. 15 



neighbor, in four and twenty hours, ready to com- 
fort and supply." 

4. Like the Children of Israel. 

No doubt the Newark pioneers thought a long 
time, and read their Bibles, and prayed for advice 
from Heaven, before they made up their minds just 
where they would settle. The Puritans never took 
any important step without asking Divine aid. 
They did not try to establish their church where 
they thought God did not wish it to be. They felt 
that in coming to this wild country of America they 
were doing very much as the children of Israel had 
done, as described in the Old Testament, and were 
finding a new home, their Land of Canaan, under 
God's guidance. They felt that they were being 
watched over and cared for in very much the same 
way as were the Hebrews in their long and weary 
journey from Egypt. 

5. A Bargain in Land. 

After the conference with (jovernor Carteret at 
Elizabethtown, Treat and his companions returned 
to Connecticut, and in the spring, in May, 1666, 
between the seventeenth and twentieth, the pioneer 
group of settlers came. The land they chose 



i6 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

included a large part of what is now Essex County, 
and for it they gave goods which were worth about 
$750. 

Right here a strikingly significant episode is to 
be recorded, at the very opening of Newark's his- 
tory.. Treat understood that Governor Carteret was 
to satisfy all right and title the Indians claimed to 
the land, and it seems probable that Carteret really 
believed that when the settlers of Elizabethtown 
bought their territory from the savages the great 
tract which was destined to become Newark was 
included. But when the Newark founders drew 
near to the land, somewhere between what are now 
Centre street and Lombardy Place, the Indians were 
on the bank with dark and menacing looks. They 
made the white men understand that the ground was 
theirs and that they had not agreed to sell to anyone. 

Treat and the little company on the ship with 
him, drew off in mortification. They returned to 
Carteret for an explanation. The Governor, much 
as he desired settlers in his new colony, firmly 
refused to pay the Indians. Some on the ship were 
for returning to Connecticut but presently wiser 
counsels prevailed and Treat with a few others went 
up the Hackensack to the head village of the savages, 
where after a long parley an agreement of sale was 



THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 17 

made up and later signed by several Indians with 
their marks or totems, and by the white men. 

It should be noted that the founders of Newark 
did not for one moment think of taking the land 
without paying for it, although Governor Carteret 
seems to have been quite willing that they should 
do so. The first Newarkers were not of the kind 
to fail to discharge whatever they felt to be their 
just and proper obligations. They were far-seeing, 
too, as they no doubt realized that to displease the 
Indians might mean serious trouble later. The fact 
that Carteret thought he had discharged all obliga- 
tions to the savages, and that he was willing they 
should take the land without paying anything for 
it beyond the annual quit-rent of half a penny an 
acre that he and succeeding proprietors were to 
impose, had no influence with them. They were 
determined to start their new town honestly, and 
it is to their everlasting credit and honor that they 
did so. 

The settlers did not pay for the land in money, 
but in goods. Here is a list of the articles which 
the Indian Perro and his family, who claimed to 
own the land, received for it : "Fifty double hands 
of powder, one hundred bars of lead, twenty axes, 
twenty coats, ten guns, twenty pistols, ten kettles, 



THE STORY OP FFS EARLY DAYS. iQ 

ten swords, four blankets, four barrels of beer, ten 
pairs of breeches, fifty knives, twenty hoes, eight 
hundred and fifty fathoms of wampum, two ankers 
of liquors and three trooper's coats." 

This payment was not made until after the settlers 
had been here over a year, as many of the families 
that had agreed to come did not arrive from 
Connecticut until about that time. When the first 
settlers landed, a bill of sale, including the price to 
be given, was agreed on, but apparently nothing 
was paid to the Indians until 1667 when most of 
the settlers had arrived and when each family's 
share of the purchase price was assessable. Later, 
additional tracts were purchased. One extended 
from the western boundary of the first tract at the 
foot of the Watchung mountains, as the Orange 
mountains were then called and comprised nearly 
all of the remainder of what is now Essex 
County. This was owned by two Indians named 
Winnocksop and Shenoctos, and they were content 
to part with it for *'two guns, three coats and 
thirteen kans of Rum," to quote the bill of sale. 

It should be a source of honest pride to every 
resident of this city, and of all New Jersey, that 
every foot of ground within the limits of the State 
was purchased from the Indians, and not taken by 



20 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

force or stolen. The Newark founders were among 
the first to estabhsh this enviable record and their 
example was scrupulously followed by all who after- 
ward made settlements in New Jersey. Few of the 
original States can lay claim to a like record of just 
and honorable dealing with the red men. 

6. Wealth of Settlers. 

In all the company there were money and goods 
to the value of about $64,000. They profited by the 
sad experiences of the Plymouth pioneers of over 
forty years before, who suffered much because they 
settled in a new country with too little money, food 
and clothing. The Newark settlers made sure that 
there was to be no "starving time" in their New 
Jersey town. 

Many small waterways ran down the hillside, 
eastward into the river or the bay; doubtless they 
had much to do with attracting the settlers here. 
The streams meant water power and water power 
meant the motive power for Newark's industries 
when the time should come for their beginning. 

In ancient days, possibly in early post-glacial 
times, a great river would seem to have flowed down 
the hillside ultimately along the general course of 
the present Market street and into Newark bay. 



THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 21 

Every deep excavation on Market street unearths 
fine water-worn sand, which proves to engineers and 
geologists that there was once water action here. 

Other httle streams came down the hillside west 
of the village. One of them ran a trifle north of 
the present line of Clay street. This came to be 
called Mill Brook, for on it the settlers' corn was 
ground for many years. Others found their way 
to the marshes south of Market street. One ran 
through Lincoln park, then little better than a marsh, 
and one where the new City Hall now stands. 

Out of the marshes near where the main line of 
the Pennsylvania railroad crosses the Passaic, rose 
a long bluff which faced the river and followed its 
curves all the way up to what is now Belleville. 
Most of this bluff was leveled away as streets were 
extended and buildings arose; but traces of it are 
still to be seen, at Saybrook Place and at Mt. Pleas- 
ant Cemetery, for instance. Below the bluff and 
between it and the river was a stretch of marsh. 

The woods about the village abounded in chest- 
nut, hickory, elm, birch, black and white ash, tulip, 
sycamore, oak and the bitter and sweet gum. The 
oak the settlers used largely for the, frames of their 
houses, when the day of log huts was over. Many 
trees w^ere split for fence-rails ; many were cut down 



22 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

and burned to clear the land for planting, and many 
more for firewood. The bitter gum was used for 
floors. There was a dense cedar forest to the north- 
east of Newark on the Hackensack Meadows, and 
there were thick woods in other places near by; 
but the earlier Newark historians say that the little 
town was not by any means closely shut in by 
forests. As the country was quite open the labor of 
making farms was much less than it would hax^e 
been had the ground been covered with trees. The 
centre of the settlement was at what is now the 
junction of Market and Broad streets. It must have 
been a pretty village, after the first year or two, 
when vines and creepers grew over the log houses 
and the roughness of the clearing began to disappear. 

7. The Four Texts. 

When they decided to come to Newark the 
founders fixed upon four verses from the Old 
Testament by means of which they planned to frame 
the whole upbuilding of their town. They were the 
following : 

And their nobles shall he of themselves, and their 
governor shall proceed from the midst of them. 
Jeremiah, xxx, 21. 

Thou shall in any ziu'se set him king over thee, 



THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 23 



•K'lioin the Lord thy God shall choose: one from 
among thy brethren shall thon set king over thee; 
thou may est not set a stranger over thee, zufhich is 
not thy brother. Deuteronomy, xvii, 15. 

Take you i^'ise men, and u]iderstaiuling, and 
knozcn among your tribes, and I will make them 
rulers over you. Deuteronomy, i, 13. 

Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people 
able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating 
covetousness; and place such over them, to be 
rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers 
of fifties, and rulers of tens. Exodus, xviii, 21. 

They wished the town to be a little Kingdom of 
God on earth. If they had followed out the texts 
they chose they would have had a king and would 
have paid attention to no government except their 
own. All this was very much as the other Puritans 
in New England had planned to do. 

8. Newark the Last Theocracy of Puritans. 

One of the most important things to be remem- 
bered about this story of the early days of Newark 
is that the men who made it were the last of the 
Puritans to try to build up a Kingdom of God on 
this continent, and that the town of Newark was 
the final effort of the Puritans in that direction. 



24 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

For a little while after Newark was started it was 
governed by Robert Treat, by the pastor, the Rev. 
Abraham Pierson, and by two or three other leading 
men. They had for their guidance the "Funda- 
mental Agreements" which were drawn up and sub- 
scribed to by the heads of all families before the 
actual settlement was made. Once on the ground 
the town's affairs were administered by means of 
town meetings, according to the New England cus- 
tom. The town meeting form of go\^ernment con- 
tinued ; for more than a century and a half from that 
time the place was g-overned through town meetings. 

While the pastor and the others referred to in the 
last paragraph directed the affairs of the settlement 
in the beginning, there were also a captain, two 
lieutenants and two sergeants whose duty it was 
,to carry out their orders as well as to stand ready 
to direct the settlers if it should be necessary for 
the latter to defend themselves against the attack 
of Indians or hostile white men. These military 
officers formed the only police the early English 
colonists had and they were very useful in many 
ways other than in those that fall to the lot of 
guardians of the peace to-day. Gradually, with the 
lessening fear of Indian attacks, and with the per- 
fection of town organization, the need of the mili- 



THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 25 

tary officers disappeared. Robert Treat was the 
first captain. 

In less than a year after settlement the town meet- 
ing began to choose officers to attend to the business 
of the community. One of the first chosen was a 
collector of taxes. Next they chose a treasurer, 
then surveyors. Two magistrates were soon named, 
and one of them was Captain Treat. Every year 
they chose new men for these places or elected the 
old ones again. Three years after the settlement 
five selectmen were chosen to have general charge 
of town affairs. 

9. The New Jersey Indians. 

None of the New Jersey Indians ■ ever made 
serious trouble for the settlers. The Hackensacks 
never forgot the honest treatment they received at 
the founding of the town. The Indians were the 
Lenni Lenape, who long before the white men came 
are believed to have been beaten in battle by the 
fiercer and more powerful tribes from what are now 
Pennsylvania and New York. The Lenni Lenape 
seem never to have made war after that early con- 
flict with their savage neighbors. 

The New Jersey Indians called what is now this 
State, "Schevichbi." One of their lars^est villao-es 



26 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

was at what is now Hackensack, and their greatest 
chief at the time the Newark founders arrived was a 
very old man, called Oraton. His name has been 
preserved here only by the street named after him. 
Oraton seems to have been a wise and just Indian, 
and seems to have resembled the kindly and broad- 
minded Massasoit with whom the Pilgrim Fathers 
at Plymouth had such pleasant dealings. 

Some time before the War for Independence the 
surviving Indians were gathered together from all 
parts of what is now the State, and placed upon a 
reservation of one thousand acres in Burlington 
county. There they became known as the ''Edge 
Pillocks." In 1 80 1 they joined the survivors of the 
Mohicans on the latter' s reservation in New York 
State. Later both the Lenni Lenape and the 
Mohicans removed to Michigan. In 1832 there were 
but forty of the Lenni Lenape living. It seems that 
one Indian and his squaw refused to leave this State 
when the others went to join the Mohicans. Their 
daughter, known as 'Tndian Ann," lived to a great 
age. She died in 1894 near Mount Holly, and was 
known as the "Last of the Lenni Lenape." 

10. The First Church a Fortress. 

While they were busy with their own houses the 
people were also planning their church, and built 



28 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

it as soon as possible. It stood on Broad street about 
where Branford place now begins, nearly opposite 
the present First Presbyterian Church. They put on 
it a cupola. In this two men stood with loaded guns, 
during the religious services, to watch for hostile 
Indians. There were also flankers at two of the 
diagonally opposite corners. These flankers were 
little towers, and a man on watch in one of them 
could look along two sides of the building, so that 
from the two flankers all four sides could be 
watched. Every Sunday a fourth of all the men 
carried guns to church, and from these were chosen, 
each week, one to watch from the church cupola and 
tw^o others to "ward," as they called it, standing 
in the flankers. 

11. The Church a Precious Thing. 

To the settlers of our city the church was the 
most precious thing they had. All the people went 
to it. In fact for a few years they did not let people 
come to live among them unless they were not only 
willing to go to church, but liked to go, and to the 
kind of church the settlers believed in. This of 
course, meant that the minister was one of the lead- 
ing men. He was not the ruler of the village, for it 
had no rulers, although the people often gave a few 



THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS, 29 

men great power. Still, the ministers of the church 
had much to do with making the town. The first 
minister is believed to have named it, calling it 
Newark, after Newark on the river Trent in Ens- 
land where he was ordained to preach. 
• The First Church of Newark, as it was called for 
many 3'ears, is the oldest fully organized church 
congregation in all of what is now New Jersey. It 
was of the congregational denomination and was 
established in Branford, Connecticut, some twenty 
years before the foundation of Newark. There were 
a few Swedish churches on the Delaware which were 
started before the Newark church, but they were 
all on the Pennsylvania side of the river. There 
were also a few Dutch churches, but they had a 
short existence. The First Dutch Church of 
Bergen, which was started several years before 
Newark w^as founded, had no regular minister, and 
it was not completely organized until many years 
after 1666. 

Newark's first church, that is the church organiza- 
tion, is really older than the town itself by about 
twenty years, for it was founded in Branford, 
Connecticut, and when the Branford people removed 
to Newark they brought with them their entire 
church organization, leaving very few of the church 



30 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

members behind. The church organization there- 
fore is now more than two hundred and fifty years 
old from its foundation to the present. 

12. The Church as a Meeting House. 

The first Newark church was used on Sundays, 
just as we use ours, for rehgious purposes; but on 
week days it was a gathering place for all public 
assemblies. They did not call it a church but a 
''meeting house," just as many people in New 
England speak of their churches to this day. All 
their meetings were religious. They never gathered 
together without praying to God to guide them iii 
whatsoever they had to do. They used their church 
building all the time, for the town's business as well 
as for the worship of God. Indeed, to them, all 
business worth doing at all was quite as much God's 
business as man's. 

13. Drums Were Very Useful. 

During the first few years, when the settlers were 
not quite sure of the Indians, the town meeting was 
called together by the beating of drums; the lieu- 
tenants doing the drumming. Whenever Indians 
seemed to be plotting trou1)le, drums were sounded 
and the people hurried to the church. 



32 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

On certain days the able bodied men of the town 
had to give up their time to work for the common 
good, building roadways, clearing the countryside 
of brush and trees, laying drains and doing all the 
other things that must be done to make a new town 
in a wilderness attractive and comfortable. The 
underbrush was often cleared by burning. A certain 
tract was set off for the purpose ; the men gathered 
at the roll of drums and went tO' this tract. There 
they applied the torch if the winds were favorable, 
and watched to see that the fire did not shift and 
that sparks were not carried to their houses. 

On the days when the men assembled to do the 
town's work, one lieutenant took up his position at 
the lower end of the town, on what is now Broad 
street, near Hill and Green streets, (and soon from 
the southern end of what is now Lincoln Park), 
while the other started from the neighborhood of 
Bridge street, or a little below. The lieutenants, 
beating their drums, proceeded toward the centre of 
the town, until they met where the little church 
stood, and the men came out of their homes and fol- 
lowed after. At times when the settlers feared at- 
tacks by the Indians strict watch was kept every 
night. As we have seen, however, the Indians never 
actually attacked them. 



THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 33 

Three men, chosen by one of the sergeants, 
gathered at some house, one standing watch outside 
while the others slept inside. They relieved each 
other through the night and a little before daybreak 
all three went out and walked about the town to 
see that all was well. Half an hour after daybreak 
the town drummer, Thomas Johnson, beat his drum 
to let the village know that another night had passed 
safely. His drum beat also told the settlers it was 
time to get up. Young Johnson also beat his drum 
on many other public occasions. 

It was not long after the village was founded 
before one of the first comers died, and was laid to 
rest behind the little church. Thus was started the 
Old Burying Ground, used for over 200 years. The 
bones of the early settlers were removed from it 
in 1887 and placed in a large vault in Fairmount 
Cemetery. Over the vault rises a monument on 
which are inscriptions telling of the men and women 
whose remains lie beneath. The small cut at the 
beginning of this chapter is from the statute of a 
Puritan pioneer which forms a part of this monu- 
ment. 

14. Filling in the Meadows. 

In the laying of drains to draw off the water 
from marshv sections of the farms and tlie town 



34 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

lands held in common some of the men provided 
pipe sections made from gum trees and others laid 
them down. Thus many a little plot was trans- 
formed into dry ground from a marsh or quagmire. 
The towais in Connecticut from which the settlers 
came had marshes in them or near them, so, being 
used to swamps in their former homes, the many 
square miles of Newark meadows did not deter them 
from coming here. The filling in of the marshes 
of Newark had been going on for nearly two 
hundred and fifty years before the great Port 
Newark Terminal enterprise was started. It must 
go on for many years more if all are to be filled. 
It was a tremendous task the settlers had before 
them. Surely they did not dream the time would 
ever come when the many thousand acres of solid 
earth we now see, teeming with industrial activity, 
would be made out of the swamps. 

The settlers seem never to have regretted coming 
here. There was much hard work to be done, but 
they seem to have rejoiced in it. Like the Puritans 
of Plymouth, they held their days of Thanksgiving. 
The writer has tried to express in the following 
hymn something of the spirit with which they were 
animated on such occasions : 



THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 35 

15. Newark Settlers' Thanksgiving Hymn. 

Here in a pleasant wilderness, Thy children. Lord, ahide, 
And turn to Thee with thankfulness in this Novemher-tide. 
Almighty God, Thy goodness grows 
More seemly, as Thou dost expose 
Thy purpose to our wondering eyes, 
Led hitherward by Thee. 

Here by Passaak's gentle flow our humble homes we rear; 
LTnchafed by want, unsought by woe, we have no cause for 

fear. 
The painted savage peaceful prowls, 
The lurking wolf unheeded growls; 
With steadfastness we hold our way. 
Uplifted, Lord, by Thee. 

With pious zeal our task we took, and soon the virgin soil 
By coppice edge, by whimpering brook, hath blest our 

sober toil. 
Our log-built homes are filled with store 
From fruitful field, from wood and shore; 
Our hearts are filled with tuneful joy, 
With thankful hymns to Thee. 

16. The Settlers Good Workmen. 

The settlers were good workmen and they trimmed 
the logs for their first houses very straight with 
their axes. They hewed them into square timbers, 
with surfaces so even and smooth tliat in some cases 



36 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 



it was hard to be sure that they were not sawed. 
We learn this from men who many years ago 
inspected the ruins of these old houses. 

In the centre of the spot on which a house was 
to stand, they dug a hole large enough to hold the 
winter store of food. This was the cellar and was 
reached through a trap door in the floor. Each 
house had a ground floor and an attic, with a roof 
which came down so low at the eaves that a tall 
man could reach up and take hold of it. The first 
floor was usually made into one big room — kitchen, 
dining room, living room and parlor, all in one, with 
a fireplace large enough to take in a backlog eight 
feet long. The logs were often hauled into the 
house by a horse, driven in at one door and out at 
another. The furniture was very simple and strong, 
and there was not much of it. The table at which 
the family ate its meals was sometimes so made that 
when a meal was over it could be converted into a 
large seat and pushed back against the wall or for- 
ward close to the fireplace. 

A pot in which to make a dye out of roots to 
color their cloth, was found in almost every house. 
The pot was cut out of a gum tree log.- The gum 
tree decays at the centre and it is easy to cut out 
the decayed part and put a wooden plug in one end 



THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 37 



for a bottom. A piece of wood was fitted into the 
top to serve as a cover and then the whole thing- 
formed a seat which stood at one corner of the 
fireplace. 

It took six months or longer to make a suit of 
clothes, for threads had to be spun from flax or 
wool, and then woven into cloth, then dyed. The 
settlers grew their own flax, and the wool came 
from sheep which soon dotted the hillside, where 
High street now^ is, all the way from William street 
to St. Michael's Hospital. For much more than a 
hundred years the people of Newark, no matter how 
well off they were, had little but homespun to wear. 

Boots and shoes were made by a traveling cobbler. 
He passed through town once every year or two, 
stopping with each family until he made boots and 
shoes for all in the household, from master to 
servants. The family got ready for him by tanning 
the skins of the cattle they killed for food. One of 
the first tanneries in what is now the United States 
was that of Azariah Crane, on the south side of 
Market street and about opposite the Lincoln statue 
in front of the Essex County Court House. Mr. 
Crane was a son of Jasper Crane who was one of 
the f(iremost men among the f(ninders. Azariah 



38 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

Crane's wife was Robert Treat's daughter. He 
started the tannery in 1685. 

17. Newark Ten Years Old. 

Ten years after the settlers landed they had a 
complete little town with a substantial church, an 
inn or tavern, a good grist mill, and a staunch boat 
which carried their produce to Elizabethtown and 
New York and brought back their purchases. Broad 
street was fairly well laid out as far down as 
Tichenor's Gate, at the lower end of the present 
Lincoln Park and as far up as Bridge street. A few 
more families had come from Connecticut and the 
town was prosperous in a humble way. It had 
passed through the early period of struggle without 
great hardship. 

The settlers loved their town, for it was peaceful 
and they were contented in it. They kept it neat and 
clean and travelers often spoke of it as a very pretty 
village. Nearly every house had a row of beehives 
at the rear. In the summer there were great masses 
of roses, from which the bees gathered honey, grow- 
ing up the sides of the houses and sometimes on to 
the roof. In 1676 the town meeting made a rule 
(an ordinance as we would call it to-day) that 
anyone destroying or marring a tree which the 



THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 39 



town's officers had marked for preservation with the 
letter ''N" should be fined. This was Newark's 
first shade tree commission movement. 

It was several years before the settlers had a store. 
Now and then a settler filled a boat with the produce 
of his farm and sailed with it to New York, where 
he bartered his cider, fruit, vegetables, grain, beef, 
chickens and ham, for such articles as he needed. 
He took in exchange for his goods, sugar, tea, coffee, 
rum, nails, hinges, hammers, axes and other articles 
which he and his fellow settlers could not grow or 
make. When a settler made a trip of this kind he 
usually took also the goods of some of his neighbors 
to exchange. Sometimes a settler would bring home 
from New York more things than he and his family 
needed, and these he would dispose of to the people 
living near him. Gradually a few of the settlers got 
into the way of keeping in their houses small 
quantities of hammer-heads, nails, knives, saws, and 
other useful tools, together with groceries, which 
they sold or exchanged for other things they wanted. 
Thus, the community's first stores w^ere started. 

18. The First Schoolmaster. 

The town was ten years old before the settlers 
were readv to establish a school, and during those 



40 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

first ten years children learned their letters at their 
mothers' knees, or did not learn them at all. John 
Catlin is believed to have been the first schoolmaster, 
and only those children whose parents were able to 
pay for their schooling could attend his school. 
Free public schools as we know them did not come 
for more than a century and a half. 

In very early days a market place was provided, 
Washington Park. The stream already described as 
flowing down Market street ran down the hillside 
where the County Court House now stands, sup- 
plying the tannery already mentioned, and a water- 
ing place was agreed on at the point where Spring- 
field avenue and Market street now meet. 

There was very little social life in those first years. 
The church was the chief thing in all men's minds, 
and when the people were not listening to sermons 
and prayers in the meeting house or gathered there 
to talk with each other about the making of their 
town, they were hard at work in field and forest, 
or in their beds. If anybody entertained young 
folks at his house after nine o'clock at night he was 
liable to a fine, except on special occasions, when 
permission must be had from one of the town 
ofticers. Boys and girls loved fun then as always, 
and they gave their sober-minded parents and grand- 



THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 41 



parents so much trouble that the town actually had 
to appoint a man to look after them and see that 
they behaved properly during the church service. 
This meant that this man must not only see to it 
that they sat quietly during the two-hour sermon, 
but must also be sure they were all in church and 
not sailing toy boats on the river, fishing in the 
brooks, or engaging in some other pastime. 

19. Forming New Settlements. 

When the town was started every settler who 
came had a right to three or more pieces of land, 
one in the centre of the settlement, another in the 
salt meadows and the other on the outskirts. The 
first piece w^as called the settler's town lot, the 
second was the pasturage lot and the third, the farm 
or w^ood-lot. There were other partitions as the 
settlement grew. As the boys and girls grew up 
and became men and women and got married, they 
often went away to the farm lots of their fathers 
or to other outlying tracts that the town voted to 
give or sell them. In this way houses soon sprang 
up in what are now called the Oranges, in Irvington, 
Belleville and Bloomfield, and in other places. 

20. Roads Began as Foot-paths. 

The i)eople who went into the countryside to live 
constantly traveled back and forth to the parent 



42 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

town. Newark was for many years the only place 
where there were stores. Many came on Sundays 
to the church, sometimes two or three on one horse. 
In this way were opened the roads we call avenues, 
along which now whiz trolley cars and automobiles. 
The planter whose home was furthest away from 
Newark would naturally pass as close to his nearest 
neighbor's house as he could in coming here, so that 
the neighbor's family might join him on his journey, 
or that he might see them and learn of any news 
they might have to give. They might wish him to do 
errands for them in the town. Then he would go 
by the next neighbor's home and so on down into 
the town. It did not take much of this kind of 
travel, always at first on foot or horseback, to wear 
a path, which after a time grew broad and smooth 
enough to permit a wagon to pass along. As the 
wagon path became better known new planters came 
and built their homes near it. Thus some of the 
great roads leading into Newark were opened almost 
before there were any houses near them. Later they 
were straightened, widened, cleared of trees, 1)oul- 
ders, filled in, graded and otherwise improved from 
time to time. Many of the old roads began in 
winding foot or bridle-paths, which took the place 
of the ancient Indian trails. 



THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 43 

21. The First Industry. 

In the early days of the town the planters found 
apples growing wild in the higher lands toward the 
Orange Mountains. The apples were small, very 
much like what we now call crab-apples; but the 
settlers cultivated them and grafted them with slips 
which they brought from Connecticut, until they 
had splendid crops of this fruit every year. Some 
of the finest apples grown in this part of the country 
came from the neighborhood of Newark. They 
were so plentiful that the planters soon began to 
make cider of them. They made it so well that 
Newark became known throughout the English 
colonies in America for the excellence of its cider. 

22. Treat Returns to Connecticut. 

When the town was in good running order Robert 
Treat went back to his old home in Connecticut. He 
had done important work here as an organizer and 
as a leader of men, a work for which history has 
never given him the credit he deserved. Once back 
in Connecticut he found much to do there, and few 
men in any of the English settlements were as useful 
to the people as he. He was a brave man and a born 
soldier, ready always to do his duty. 



44 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

When the New England colonies had to raise a 
little army to fight the Indians, Robert Treat was 
chosen to lead the Connecticut soldiers. This was 
in King Philip's war, in 1675, nine years after Treat 
and his companions had founded Newark. His 
soldiers joined with those of Massachusetts Bay 
and Plymouth colonies on a bitter cold day and 
marched many miles into the forest near the present 
Peacedale, R. I., until they came to a swamp with 
a low hill in its centre. On this hill was an Indian 
fort, and within its walls were several thousand 
Indians — men, women and children. Many of the 
Indian warriors had guns which they had bought 
or stolen from the white men and with which they 
could shoot well. 

23. Treat in Battle. 

There seemed but one way to reach the fort, along 
the trunk of a tree that made a rude bridge over a 
ditch: This ditch ran all around the fort and the 
tree trunk crossed it just in front of the gate. When 
the soldiers saw the little bridge they ran bravely 
toward it through the swamp. As they tried to 
cross it the Indians fired at them through narrow 
slits in the walls of the fort and killed many. Still 
other soldiers charged for the tree trunk. Again 



THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. ^ 

came Hashes of flame from the walls, and the ditch 
began to fill up with dead and dying white men. 
The colonists showed great courage at this terrible 
moment. Their descendants were never more reso- 
lute or fearless of death a hundred years later when 
the War for Independence came. But here some- 
thing more than bravery was needed. At this instant 
the Connecticut men, w^ho had been kept as a rear 
guard, arrived on the field. Major Treat sent part 
of them into the fight at the tree trunk ; the rest he 
led around to the rear looking for a place where 
they might break through and attack the red men 
from the back. The weak spot was found, and 
quicker than it can be told the Connecticut men 
were emptying their guns at the Indians, wdio did 
not dream that an enemy could possibly get at them 
from behind until they heard the roar of muskets 
and caught the sound of the Connecticut men's 
cheers. Many hundreds of the Indians were killed 
at the fort and the village that stood inside of it 
was destroyed by fire. Major Treat was the last 
man to leave this awful scene of bloodshed. This 
stroke of the Connecticut men saved the New 
England soldiers from frightful slaughter and from 
possible loss of the battle. The victory broke the 
power of King Philip, and the Indians were never 
again so troublesome in New England. 



46 - A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

24. Treat as Governor. 

When Major Treat returned at the head of his 
victorious but badly shattered force, the people of 
Connecticut hailed him as a hero, and soon made 
him Deputy Governor. Later he became Governor, 
and it was while he was in office that the tyrant 
Andros, sent over by the English King to enforce 
harsh laws on the colonists and to take their charters 
away, came to Connecticut. The charter was an 
agreement in writing, signed by the King, giving 
the colonists certain rights. Governor Treat received 
the King's officer in the assembly hall in the after- 
noon of a warm day and made a speech of welcome. 
It grew dark while the conference w^as still* going on, 
and candles had to be brought. The candles were 
placed on the table on which lay the precious charter 
of Connecticut. Suddenly some one tossed a coat 
through an open window on to the table, and thus 
put out the candles. When the candles were lighted 
again the charter had vanished and no one seemed 
to know where it had gone. Andros was in a fury 
over its disappearance; but could do nothing. The 
colonists hid it in a tree which is now famous in 
history as Connecticut's ''Charter Oak." Just how 
much Robert Treat had to do with this plan for 



THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 4 7 

keeping the charter from the King's officer and thus 
retaining the people's riglits, we shall never know ; 
but that he was deep in the plan to help preserve the 
colonists against greater tyrannies, we may be sure.' 
He lived to be eighty-six, and when he died the 
whole Connecticut colony felt his loss keenly. 

25. Settlers were Able Men. 

These incidents show what kind of men they were 
who made Newark. If the Jersey Indians had been 
hostile; if they had skulked about the settlement 
watching for a chance to burn the houses and kill 
the women and children, or to drive their flint- 
tipped arrows into the hearts of the men as they 
worked in the fields, they would have found the 
Newark settlers just as brave as were their rela- 
tives and friends in Connecticut. The preparations 
of the first Newarkers to face an Indian uprising, 
as already described, show their sturdy character. 
Robert Treat took up arms when he went back to 
his old home, because the colonies were in danger of 
destruction. The future of New England and of the 
English speaking race from the Delaware to Maine, 
hung for a little time almost in the balance. Had 
not the Indians been wholly subdued the settlers 
might all have been driven away. 



48 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

26. Newark, Yale and Princeton. 

There were other men here, quite as good and as 
strong as the fighting men, who showed their skill 
and bravery in a different way. The Rev. Abraham 
Pierson, the pastor of the church (which we now 
know as the First Presbyterian, but which was origi- 
nally and for many years after the settlement of the 
Congregational denomination), was as fearless and 
as stalwart a Puritan as the men of arms. He was a 
deep and earnest thinker, and the whole town loved 
him and looked up to him as the chosen head of that 
church for which they and their parents and grand- 
parents had suffered so much in England and New 
England. The son of Pastor Pierson, who bore 
the same name as his father, was not a soldier, but a 
scholar like his father. He went back to Connecticut, 
and in later years, when Yale College was started, 
became its first president. You may see his statue 
to-day in the college yard at New Haven. 

Newark came very near being the birthplace of 
what is now Princeton University. The College of 
New Jersey, which was founded at Elizabethtown 
in May, 1747, was removed to Newark a few 
months later, in the same year, when its head, the 
Rev. Jonathan Dickinson, died. Here it grew and 
prospered for about nine years, under the charge of 



^^BF 



CyVk^^^ntr/^ 



^12^--^ 



50 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

the Rev. Aaron Burr, pastor of the First Church, 
and father of the vice-president of the United States 
of that name. Some, and probably most, of the 
college exercises, were held in the church on Broad 
street on the north side of Branford Place. 

The college was founded by the Presbyterian 
Synod of New York, which included a part of New 
Jersey. One reason for the establishment of the 
institution was that the authorities of Yale College 
did not relish the kindly treatment given by the 
clergymen of this section to David Brainerd, whom 
the Yale faculty called one of their ^'disorderly 
pupils." Brainerd had been appointed a missionary 
to the Indians in this neighborhood and in what is 
now New York State, after he had been expelled 
from Yale. Brainerd's offense was one that we of 
to-day would call very trivial, and it is hard for us 
to understand why a college faculty should take it 
so seriously. It was charged against him that he 
had said one of the college instructors had no more 
spiritual grace than a chair, and that he had attended 
a religious meeting of a sect of which the college 
authorities did not approve. The Rev. Dr. Burr, 
the second president of the New Jersey College, is 
said to have remarked : 'Tf it had not been for the 
treatment received by Mr. Brainerd at Yale College, 



THE STORY OF TTS EARLY DAYS. 5 ^ 

New Jersey College never would have been erected." 
The clergymen in New Jersey were inclined to 
believe that the students they sent to Yale were 
made to feel the faculty's displeasure because of 
the Brainerd incident. The clergy in New Jersey 
had not hesitated to denounce the harsh treatment 
given Brainerd at New Haven. 

It is possible that college might have remained 
here to this day had the people living in Newark 
and hereabouts given it more liberal support. The 
officers of the college decided that new buildings 
and other equipment were needed and they asked 
the people to give money and land for this object. 
They gave very little and very slowly, and when 
land was offered at Princeton, with other induce- 
ments, it was decided to remove the college thither. 
So Newark lost an opportunity to become the 
permanent home of one of the greatest colleges in 
the country. During the entire period the college 
was in Newark it had about ninety students. Brain- 
erd, the missionary, who, as already explained was 
indirectly one of the causes for the founding of the 
college, died in the same year the institution was 
founded. He contracted consumption while labor- 
ing among the Indians. 

Fifteen years or so before the starting of the 



52 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

College of New Jersey, the First Presbyterian 
Church became involved in a controversy which 
finally disrupted it. Colonel Josiah Ogden, a leading- 
member of the church, went into his fields with his 
servants one Sunday and gathered in his wheat 
which was in danger of destruction from long con- 
tinued rains. He was disciplined for this by the 
church authorities. He resented this treatment, 
contending that Sunday was made for man and not 
man for Sunday. There was a long discussion, and 
in the end Colonel Ogden and many who sympa- 
thized with him left the church and founded Trinity 
Episcopal Church congregation. This was about 
1732 or '33. There had been occasional services 
of the Episcopal Church in Newark for several 
years previous to this. The first Trinity Church 
was built in 1743-44, and the base of the spire of 
the present edifice was in the original structure. 
Wounded Continental soldiers were cared for in the 
old church after the disastrous battle of Long Island, 
in 1776. 

27. Military Park. 

Military Park was first called the Training Place. 
The first training place was virtually in the original, 
the Old Burying Ground just west of Halsey street, 



THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 53 



a little south of Market street. It was in Alilitary 
Park that the able-bodied men gathered once or 
twice a year to drill and practice shooting- their 
muskets. This was done that they might ])e ready 
at any time, in case the Indians became troublesome. 
When King Philip's war was raging in Xew 
England the Newark settlers became very anxious 
for fear the Indians of New Jersey might take up 
the hatchet. In the year of the King Philip War 
we find the following in the ancient record of 
Newark's town meetings : — 

''John W^ard is chosen to procure a barrel of 
powder and lead answerable to it. as reasonable as 
he can; provided that the town pay him within this 
week in corn, fowls and eggs, or any way to satisfy 
him." This was the way they got their ammunition. 

28. Newark in 1774. 

But more than a century from the time of the 
settlement was to flow cjuietly by before Newark 
had any real cause to become troubled o\'er 
war's alarms. WHien the clouds of the coming \Yi\r 
for Independence began to gather, the sturdy 
descendants of the early settlers showed that they 
possessed the intrepid spirit of their fathers. In 
Newark was held one of the first meetings in the 




I 



THE STORY OF ITS EARLY D AYS. 55 

entire province of New Jersey to protest against the 
tyranny of King George the Third. It assembled 
in the httle hall in what was then called the Court 
House, on Broad street, about where Bran ford Place 
is now cut through. All the patriots of Essex 
County gathered at that meeting. They voiced their 
protest against the refusal of Governor Franklin, a 
son of Benjamin Franklin, to call a session of the 
Colonial Legislature for the purpose of choosing 
delegates to the first Congress at Philadelphia. But 
the meeting did more than protest. It drew up a 
circular letter which was sent out to all the counties 
of the province, calling upon the people to send 
delegates to a convention to be held in New Bruns- 
wick on July 21 of that same year, 1774. It was 
at the convention in New Brunswick that repre- 
sentatives to the first Continental Congress were 
chosen. Resolutions were also passed at the Newark 
meeting condemning the reigning monarch and the 
home government of England for its oppression 
of the colonies. 

29. In the War for Independence. 

Newark and the whole county suffered for its 
patriotism later on, when war was raging. British 
soldiers often descended upon the little town and 



56 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARIC 

took away provisions, cattle and sheep worth many 
hundred dollars ; sometimes burned houses, and two 
or three times took away furniture and abused men 
and women. The brave pastor of the First Church, 
the Rev. Alexander Macwhorter, a true successor 
to the old Puritan pastor, Piersoii, spoke out with 
fervor and fearlessness from his pulpit, and for his 
boldness was forced to leave the town. Two or 
three times, British officers and soldiers came from 
New York or Staten Island to arrest him ; but he 
was always told of their coming in time to escape. 
In November, 1776, when Washington and his army 
left Newark in their flight through the State, Pastor 
Macwhorter traveled with the Commander-in-chief, 
and counselled with him upon the movement which 
ended in the capture of Trenton, on Christmas Eve. 

30. Washington in Newark. 

After the defeat and retirement from Long Island, 
Washington and his army were in Newark for five 
or six days. They had fled across the Hudson, over 
the upper Hackensack Meadows and down the west 
bank of the Passaic. It was a very trying time for 
Washington. He lost hundreds of his soldiers while 
in Newark because their terms of service had run 
out and they wished to q-q to their homes. British 



C^€Lc-4^fy/v^:z.^:^^-cK^i 




58 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

agents were active in town and country, and offered 
inducements to the people to sign papers agreeing 
not to oppose the King's soldiers and not to give aid 
to the patriot army. Many signed these papers. In 
fact, at that time and for a number of years after- 
ward, nearly half the people of this town and county 
were either active Tories, or, in secret, sympathizers 
with the British government. Thomas Paine, whose 
tracts did much to stir the flagging spirits of the 
lovers of liberty, is believed to have had the dark 
days of the retreat through Newark and on down 
the State in mind when he wrote, "These are the 
times that try men's souls." 

One of Washington's greatest trials was the 
failure of General Charles Lee, second in command 
to Washington, to come to Newark with his army 
of several thousand men. Had he joined the 
Commander-in-chief, as the latter urged him to do 
in letters he sent every day while the army was in 
Newark, Washington could have made a stand and 
fought a battle here. Some historians think that he 
wished to do this. But the cunning Lee would not 
come. He hoped that Washington would meet with 
disaster, and that then he could get Congress to make 
him commander of the armies of the colonists. 
Later, both Congress and Washington came to 



THE STORY OF ITS EARLY D AYS. 59 

understand Lee's treachery; but not until the latter 
had made a great deal of trouble and done much 
harm to the patriot cause. 

When Washington left Newark, going toward 
New Brunswick, people said they could trace the 
army route by bloody foot-prints of the ragged 
soldiers. But a great victory was at hand, and soon 
Newark and all the country rang with cheers over 
the capture of the Hessians at Trenton. Then 
came Washington's brilliant strategy at the battle 
of Princeton, at which in later years the great 
military students of Europe marveled. After the 
Princeton battle Washington went into winter 
quarters at Morristown. He and the army passed 
two winters there and on many occasions the 
Commander-in-chief made trips to Newark. 

31. The Battle of Second River. 

Early in September, 1777, General Clinton, then 
second in command of the British land forces, 
carried out a somewhat extensive expedition against 
the towns of this neighborhood. It was really a 
foraging excursion on a large scale, to gather in 
the produce of the farms for the use of the British 
and Hessians in New York and Staten Island. 




Triniiy Church as a Soldiers' Hospital. 



THE STORY OF ITS liARLY DAYS. 6i 

Several thousand of the enemy were engaged in 
the movement. 

General Clinton had his headquarters in the old 
Schuyler house, still standing, east of what is now 
Belleville. The house is on the old river road 
(Hudson county side) a little south of the present 
Belleville bridge. 

One of Clinton's columns moved on Elizabeth- 
town from Staten Island, rounding up many cattle 
in that place and at Connecticut and Lyons Farms, 
and marching on to Newark. A second force was 
brought around into the Hackensack river by boat. 
This was the column that Clinton accompanied. 
It had two cannon which it got ready for action 
on the hilltop east of the Schuyler house just 
mentioned. 

When the column from Elizabethtown reached 
Newark, part of it proceeded as far westward into 
Irvington and the Oranges as it dared and gathered 
in many more cattle and much forage. But by 
nightfall the people were so aroused and were 
beginning to make such a strenuous resistance that 
the leader of the British column decided not to 
remain in the town, marching up to the ravine at 
what is now called Second river and going into 
bivouac. Before dawn the men of Newark and the 



62 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

neighborhood were posted along the south side of 
Second river and a general engagement began by 
daylight. The British battery across the river, on 
the hilltop east of the Schuyler house, opened fire 
on the Newark patriots and the engagement 
continued throughout the day. Late in the after- 
noon the British made a successful movement upon 
the patriots' left flank, and they retreated. Never- 
theless, General Clinton thought it wise to draw 
off his forces under cover of darkness. He gave his 
losses as eight killed, nineteen wounded, ten missing 
and five of his people taken prisoners. It is believed 
his losses were somewhat heavier. No estimate of 
the patriots' loss was given. Clinton was very 
cautions. He realized that his expedition had stirred 
the whole countryside and he concluded it was not 
wise to prod it any further. He reported taking 
400 cattle, 400 sheep and many horses together with 
much farm produce. He led his force up the west 
bank of the Passaic, returning presently to New 
York City. 

32. British Outrages. 

On one of their forays, in January, 1780, the 
British burned the Academy at the foot of Wash- 
ington Park, and, going across the street to a 



64 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

house that stood a Httle distance north of what 
is now the corner of Broad and Lombardy streets, 
seized a brave patriot named Joseph Hedden. 
They made him walk all the way to Paulus Hook, 
now Jersey City, through the bitter cold, clad 
only in his nightgown and a blanket which a 
neighbor gave him as he and his captors passed. 
The Academy had been built but a few years before, 
in 1774, by popular subscription. It was the most 
pretentious building in the town after the church. 
During the war it was used as a barracks for small 
parties of Washington's men detailed for outpost 
duty from the camp at Morristown or by detach- 
ments of militia. The winter of 1 779-1 780 was 
the coldest on record in the early days. New York 
bay, the Hudson, Hackensack and Passaic rivers 
were so solidly frozen that the British marched their 
troops over the ice. 

These were stirring days for Newark, and the 
spirit of the old settlers seemed born anew in 
descendants whose devotion to their country no 
hardship could shake. Newark and the country had 
minute-men, and often when the British and 
Hessians, or bands of Tories made their trips here- 
abouts looking for food and plunder, these minute- 
men rallied and fought the foe ''from behind each 



THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 65 

fence and farmyard wall." They seriously harassed 
these foraging parties as the latter made their way 
back through the country toward New York or 
Staten Island. The battle of Springfield was so near 
the town of Newark that the people here heard the 
thunder of its cannon. Newark minute-men doubt- 
less fought in that combat, as did many other 
Newarkers who were in the companies that enlisted 
here and in neighboring towns. 

33. The Fight at the "Four Corners." 

One of the illustrations in this book shows a 
party of the King's soldiers engaged in a lively 
skirmish at the corner of Market and Broad streets. 
The British were returning to Bergen hill after a 
search for food among the farms in and near 
Newark. For several miles they had been sorely 
harassed by minute-men. As they crossed Broad 
street the minute-men's fire from adjacent houses 
became so severe that the commander of the detach- 
ment ordered the men to halt and fire. 

In the house on the northwest corner were several 
men. One of them was very old, too old to shoot, 
so he sat beside the fire and loaded the guns for the 
others to use. The British finally charged the house, 
burst down ihc door and drove the nu*nute-mcn out 




PS 

o 
U 



THE STORY OF ITS EARLY DAYS. 6; 



.of it and through the apple and peach orchard to the 
west. Some of the British soldiers, finding the old 
man sitting by the fire, were about to kill him, but 
the leader, far more humane than many of his 
brother ofiicers, gave the order to spare him, because 
of his great age and feebleness. 

34. Camps and Hospitals. 

The Second Regiment, New Jersey Continental 
line was stationed in Newark from the fall of 1778 
until May, 1779, under the command of Colonel 
Israel Shreve. The location of its camping ground 
is not definitely known. In all probability it was 
in Woodside and on the eastern edge of Forest Hill, 
between Summer and Mt. Prospect avenues a little 
north of Elwood avenue. Until very recently an 
old stone structure stood there. It was known as 
the powder magazine and was believed to have been 
a storage place for such supplies during the War 
for Independence. It is also a tradition that General 
''Mad Anthony" Wayne occupied this spot with his 
command. There is no proof of this, however. 

Trinity Episcopal Church (the predecessor of the 
present edifice) was used as a hospital for Conti- 
nental soldiers during the greater part of the war. 
There are reasons for l)elieving that the First 



68 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

Presbyterian Church (which stood on the west side 
of Broad street nearly opposite the present building) , 
and the County Court House which was adjacent 
to the church, were also used as hospitals. The 
hospital system here, which attracted the favorable 
attention of Washington, originated with Dr. 
William Burnet of this town. 

Newark was roughly dealt with by the war. 
Many of its leading citizens and their families were 
loyalists. They were forced to leave town and their 
estates were liable to confiscation. Business was, 
during the greater part of the war, at a virtual 
standstill, and the farmers were not inclined to raise 
large crops for fear of raiders carrying off the fruits 
of their labor. The religious, social and intellectual 
life of the little community was sadly shaken by the 
great struggle. We find very little about Newark 
in any print for the first half dozen years after the 
end of the war, which means that the village was 
so exhausted that tliere were no activities worth 
chronicling. 



THE STORY OF ITS 
AWAKENING 




SETH BOYDEN 1788-187O 
FROM A BUST IN THE PUBLIC LIBRARY. 



CHAPTER 11. 
THE STORY OF ITS AWAKENING 

The people of Newark, in common with all other 
communities, when they l3egan to recover from the 
staggering blows dealt them by the War for Inde- 
pendence, gradually awoke to a realization that they 
were like children suddenly cut off from the guid- 
ance of the mother country. They produced raw 
material, but they were unskilled in manufactures; 
they were conversant with the farming industry and 
untutored in all others. It was a serious situation. 
Few towns grasped its gravity more clearly than 
did Newark. It is because of her quick comprehen- 
sion of the need of industries of many sorts and her 
remarkable resourcefulness and energy in creating 
them that she is now one of the great industrial 
centres of the United States. 

The first Independence Day celebration here after 
the war of which we have record, occurred in 
1788. It is highly significant of the temper and 
spirit of the times that this celebration had very 
little of the martial in it. Newark had been too 
intimately connected with the whole l)loo(ly struggle 



n A SHORT H ISTORY OF NEWARK. 

to have much enthusiasm for the sight of soldiery ; 
the din of arms smote her ears with none too pleasant 
sensations. At the banquet they toasted "The 
Farmers and Mechanicks of Newark," as well as 
"The Officers and Militia of Newark." In the parade 
for the day, however, the militia were conspicuous 
by their absence. The marchers were the farmers, 
shoemakers, tanners, carpenters, quarrymen, coach 
and "chair" makers, painters, wheelwrights, silver- 
smiths, stone masons, comb makers, clock and watch 
makers, tailors, hatters, saddlers, coopers, butchers, 
weavers, dyers and fullers, tobacconists, furnace 
men, ditchers, millers, ship carpenters, blacksmiths 
and scythe-makers; together with the clergy, 
physicians, lawyers and the students of two 
academies. There was also a half-troop of horse, 
but the accounts say nothing of the men being in 
uniform. 

The day, therefore, was given up to the exploita- 
tion of the industries and the arts of peace. It was 
a distinct and altogether noteworthy effort to arouse 
civic pride, to stimulate the people to greater efforts 
to develop the best resources of the country. At 
that time the establishment of each new industry 
was looked upon as a patriotic enterprise, and the 
promoter's were hailed as true patriots. 



THE STORY OF ITS AWAKENING. jz 

35. Newark's Long Sleep. 

When the nineteenth century opened there were 
hving in Newark hardly twelve hundred persons, 
men, women and children. In a hundred years the 
population had scarcely doubled. Many more people 
now pass the corner of Market and Broad streets in 
a few minutes during the busy hours of morning 
or evening than lived in all Newark in 1800. In 
the last hundred years Newark has increased in 
population more than three hundred times. In fact 
it has done nearly all its growing in the last 
seventy years. It drowsed and dreamed in peace 
and quiet, content to stay as it was, for nearly a 
century and a half, from 1666 to 1820. Its people 
do not seem to have cared to be rich nor did they 
wish to see their town made big. They wxre born, 
grew up, married, lived their span of years in 
uneventfulness and moderate labor, died and were 
buried in the Old Burying Ground, or in the church- 
yard back of the First Church. 

36. Nev^ark the Village in 1800. 

In 1800 the town of Newark was not huddled 
closely together as the city is to-day. There was 
plenty of land around nearly every building. Even 
with all this open space the boundaries of the town 




Market Street, East, from Mulberry— 1800. 



THE STORY OF ITS AWAKENING. 75 

proper were narrow, and were practically these : 
On the north, Bridge street, opposite where the 
Public Library now stands; on the south, South 
or Lincoln Park; on the west, Washington street; 
and on the east. Mulberry street. 

Here and there throughout the country to the 
North, West and South were thinly-settled sections 
that were later to become the various communities 
that now make up Essex County. The township of 
Orange was not set off from Newark until 1806. 

The town shepherd tended his flocks in Military 
Park, which had a post and rail fence around part 
of it. Where Centre Market now^ stands was a one- 
story frame building, used for many years as a post 
office. On the east side of the park there were but 
three houses and along the northern boundary but 
two. The Trinity Church of that day was much 
smaller than the present building. The main 
entrance faced the park, in the middle of the long 
side. In Washington Park the boys and girls 
played at hide-and-seek among the low crumbling 
walls of the old stone Academy building, which 
stood at the lower end of the park nearly opposite 
the end of Halsey street. It had been burned by 
the British in 1780, when troops were sent out 
from New York to harass the patriots. Down 



76 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

Broad street from Military Park toward Market 
street were a few low buildings. 

The largest building in the town, except the 
church, was the Academy, which was built in 1792 
and took the place of the one destroyed by the 
British. It stood where the post office now is. If 
one chanced to meet, about 1830, an old resident, 
he could tell how the British soldiers came into the 
town in the daytime, and terrorized the patriots, 
ransacked their houses, broke and burned their 
furniture, and filled the street with the fragments 
of household goods which they destroyed in their 
search for valuables, all in the hope that they would 
thus break the spirit of the people who were so 
bravely fighting for their independence. 

At the corner of Market and Broad streets, in 
1800, were only two-story or story-and-a-half build- 
ings. There were orchards and gardens behind 
these buildings and sometimes between them. The 
centre of the space where the two streets meet, and 
where the car tracks now cross, was ten or fifteen 
feet lower than the corners, and here was a town 
pump, surrounded with mud in summer and with 
ice and slush during most of the winter. 

37. The Old Tavern and Southern Trade. 

On the northeast corner was Archer Gifford's 
tavern with its wonderful sign which every boy in 



THE STORY OF ITS AllAKENING. 77 

town 110 doubt thought a great work of art. The 
name of the tavern was ''The Hunters and the 
Hounds." These words were on the sign, wdth a 
painting showing a pack of hounds and several 
hunters on horseback, one of the hunters holding 
aloft a fox by the hind legs while the hounds jumped 
about him. The sport of that day for gentlemen, 
especially in the South, was fox hunting. Planters 
coming from the South frequently stopped at this 
tavern or one of the others, and the pretty town of 
Newark became well known because of its natural 
beauty and through the stories of good fare and 
pleasant times which the planters told when they 
returned home. In this way trade with the South 
sprang up when Newark began to make things to 
sell. Southerners bought Newark goods liberally, 
and trade with the South grew as Newark grew. 

Nothing did so much to develop Newark as the 
building of the bridges across the Passaic (at Bridge 
street) and Hackensack rivers and the rude log road 
between, in 1792. From that time Newark took 
the lead amon^ the communities of New Jersey. 

Much of the life of the town, in 1800, centered 
around the taverns. It was there that one went to 
get the news of the day. Two or three were opened 
shortly after the War for Independence, and soon 



THE STORY OF ITS AWAKENING. 79 

became the favorite resorts for all persons passing 
up or down the country. Travelers from over the 
hills, from Morristown and beyond, stopped here 
on their way to New York, and usually stayed over 
night to refresh themselves before going on. Those 
who came from Philadelphia and beyond, also stayed 
here, unless they stopped at Elizabethtown and there 
took a boat to New York. 

38. The Stage Coach. 

Soon after the bridges were opened a stage line 
between Newark and New York w^as started. The 
stage went to New York in the morning and 
returned at night, and though it made only one 
trip each way every day except Sunday and carried 
only six passengers, it was spoken of at the time as 
"a great convenience." It started from the Gifford 
tavern in the morning and returned in the afternoon, 
always with a grand flourish of horns. Other lines 
were soon created. There were two or three coaches 
that plied back and forth between Newark and 
Jersey City, carrying the first commuters. For 
many years this means of communication with New- 
York, and that by boats, filled all needs. In 1840, 
despite the fact that the first railroad had been 
established several years, there were eight or ten 



8o A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

coaches running to and from New York every day, 
each carrying fourteen or fifteen passengers, some 
sitting outside and others travehng inside. 

39. Broad Street in 1800. 

In 1800 the jail stood a httle north of where 
Branford place now is and where the second church 
building of the town had once stood. Across the 
street and a little further south was the First Church, 
just as we see it to-day, except that it was quite new 
then and the people thought it a splendid edifice. It 
was dedicated in 1791. It was the most pretentious 
building in all the town, as the people believed it 
should be. The man who had most to do with 
getting it built was Pastor Macwhorter, already 
mentioned as a brave patriot and fearless preacher 
during the war. Here and there along Broad street 
below Market were stores. On the south corner of 
Broad and William streets, a little west from the 
former, was the First Church parsonage. (The 
original parsonage, the home of the Rev. Abraham 
Pierson, Sr., was about where the Broad street 
station of the Central now stands. The Burr 
parsonage is believed to have been the second.) 
Here was born Aaron Burr, son of one of the pastors 
of the church, and vice-president of the United 



THE STORY OF ITS AWAKENING. 8i 

States in 1801. He was a good soldier during the 
W^ar for Independence, but later failed to maintain 
high standards of honor and citizenship. From this 
point on the houses were fewer and farther apart, 
and the southern limit of the town was reached at 
what is now the junction of Clinton avenue and 
Broad street. Clinton avenue was a cart path, and 
Broad street here ended in a sw^amp. Mulberry 
street was known as the "East Back street" and 
Washington as the \\'ts>i Back street. 

40. High Street and Westward in 1800. 

Along all the length of High street there were 
but two or three houses and the street itself was 
little more than a lane. Beyond it, to the west, 
there were a few inviting paths, lovers' walks in 
fact, where the young men and women of Newark 
strolled on quiet Sunday afternoons, looking down 
on the little village nestling among the trees below, 
with the blue bay beyond. On wxek days sheep and 
cattle pastured in the fields and meadows beyond 
High' street; and except for an occasional planter 
travelling back and forth from town to his home on 
the Orange Mountains or near by, one might stroll 
for hours over what are now the Weequahic section, 
Clinton Hill, West Newark, Roseville, Forest Hill 



82 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

and Woodside and hear no sounds save those of 
nature. It is hard to reahze that in 1800 everybody 
living in the town knew everybody else. This was 
a fact, however. Even forty years later old gentle- 
men sometimes wrote to the newspapers that they 
no longer knew even by sight all whom they met 
on the street, so great had the town grown ! 

41. A Farm in Mulberry Street in 1815. 

In the year 181 5 a prominent Newark man wished 
to go to Europe, and to pay his expenses he decided 
to sell some of his land. So he advertised for sale 
his house, and his farm of about ten acres, extending 
along Mulberry street about eight hundred feet, and 
running all the way to the Passaic river where it 
had a frontage of about eight hundred feet. There 
was a board fence nine feet high all around this 
farm, and in the advertisement the owner stated 
that: ''Last season, besides cutting fifty-six tons of 
hay, there were kept in the pasture twenty-five 
Merino sheep, three cows in the best order, and a 
flock of eighty or one hundred sheep may be amply 
supplied with grass on the premises." The tract 
just described is now one of the most densely 
built-up sections of the entire city and the ground 
alone is worth several million dollars. Yet it was 



THE STORY OF ITS AWAKENING. 83 

of farms such as this that Newark was very largely 
made up at that time. Just think of ten acres with 
only one house on it, in the heart of the Newark 
of to-day ! 

42. Quiet Sundays in Old Newark. 

Many of the solemn old citizens of Newark did 
not like to see their town awakening from its long 
sleep, and it hurt them most of all to see the calm 
of their Sundays disturbed. Evidently they felt that 
a change was coming; they saw that the young- 
generation was growing uneasy under the restraints 
put upon it during the day of rest, for, a little before 
1800, a large number of them formed an association 
to preserve the old Puritan Sabbath. They agreed 
neither to ride out nor to travel on Sunday except 
in cases of necessity, nor let their children or appren- 
tices do so, but to keep them indoors all day long. 
They also agreed to try to get everyone else in the 
town to live in the same sober wa3^ They would 
let no wagons of any sort be driven about or through 
the town on Sunday. They even stopped a coach 
bearing the United States mail, and had to be told 
that they would be handcuffed and taken to Wash- 
ington as prisoners if they did not let the mail 
carriers alone. Once they halted a carriage in which 




CQ 



THE STORY OP ITS AWAKENING. 85 

a young army officer was driving on his way to New- 
York. The officer threatened to shoot them as he 
would robbers. Then they let him go. It is believed 
that this young officer was Winfield Scott, after- 
wards famous as the hero of the Mexican War, and 
the head of the army at the time of the outbreak 
of the Civil War. On still another occasion a gentle- 
man travelling from the South was not permitted 
to continue his journey on the Sabbath. He stayed 
at the Gifford tavern and on Monday, when the land- 
lord asked for his pay, he told his host to collect the 
money from the stern and puritanical citizens who 
had made him stay over Sunday against his will. 
But little by little this spirit of intolerance, a relic 
of the old Puritanism of which w^e find many traces 
in the history of the beginnings of Newark, died 
out, and new and broader life began. Even this 
freer order of things was found far from pleasant 
by the immigrants from Europe and the struggle 
for greater freedom, chiefly in the matter of Sunday 
observance, began in real earnest soon after the Civil 
War. 

43. Newark Begins to Make Things. 

The greatest incentive to the growth of Newark 
was the discovery by the people that they could 



86 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

make things that other people would pay money 
for. They found that they were handy with tools. 
Other towns had sprung up about them and bought 
the things Newark people made. In the country 
north and west of the town were still a few 
Indians, and also bear, elk, deer, w^olves and other 
wild animals. Farmers w^ere raising good crops on 
the fertile soil. They brought their products to 
market in Newark, and the Newark people began to 
give the things they made to the farmers in exchange 
for food, wool, lumber and other products. 

44. Making Boots and Shoes. 

Long before the War for Independence the settlers 
tanned and curried leather; but they seem to have 
done it only for home use until about 1790. Then 
a man named Moses Combs opened a little factory 
and made boots and shoes to sell. He may be called 
the first manufacturer of Newark and the virtual 
father of Newark's industries. A tablet in his 
memory was dedicated in 191 5 and unveiled in 
191 6 on Washington's Birthday. 

45. An Early Free School. 

He started one of the very first free schools in the 
United States. This was about 1800. He opened 



THE STORY OF TTS AWAKENING. 87 



this school for his apprentices, and built a large 
building on Market street near Plane, part of it for 
a school and the rest for a church. His was also 
one of the very first schools with a free school 
feature. He also conducted in his building some 
of the very earliest night classes. Mr. Combs was 
not pleased with the preaching in the First Presby- 
terian Church, although he had long been a promi- 
nent member of it and had given liberally to help 
erect the present First Presbyterian Church building. 
So he started a church of his own; but it did not 
last long. This shoemaker was also a strong believer 
in freedom for all men, and, though he lived over 
half a century before the War of the Rebellion 
which set the slaves free, he talked in favor of their 
freedom wherever he went. He did more ; he gave 
freedom to a black man whom he owned as a slave. 
In this case kindness was poorly rewarded, for the 
negro was an evil-doer and was hanged for murder 
in what is now Military Park, in 1805. 

This pioneer of Newark's manufacturers was a 
far-seeing man in many w^ays. In his idea of a free 
school he sought to supply education, not only 
because it was a good thing for the boys and girls, 
but also because he wished to make out of them 
better workmen for his factory. This was really 



88 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

the beginning of the industrial and trade and 
manual training school idea of which we of to-day 
are only just now beginning to appreciate the great 
need. Mr. Combs, the far-seeing, discerned this 
need a hundred years ago. 

Mr. Combs was probably the first Newark manu- 
facturer to send any of his goods to the South. He 
sent two hundred pairs of sealskin shoes to Georgia. 
This shipment brought more orders, for this man 
made his shoes very well and the Southerners liked 
them. Later Mr. Combs received as much as $9,000 
for one shipment of shoes to the South. 

46. Newark a Village of Shoemakers. 

His neighbors saw him making money, and some 
of them also began to make shoes to sell. Soon 
Newark was sending shoes by the wagon-load far 
and wide. So busy were the people making shoes, 
in 1806, that when a map of the town was made in 
that year, the map maker drew on its margin a 
picture of a shoemaker busy at his last; and this 
map is knowai as the "Shoemaker map" to this day. 
A few years later nineteen-twentieths of the Newark 
men, women and children who worked for other 
people were employed in manufactures in which 
leather was used. At one time a third of all the 



TUB STORY OF ITS All'AKENING. 89 



people worked at shoemaking. Newark manufactur- 
ers had to hire men and boys from other towns to 
work in their shops, for there were not enough here. 
Workmen came from far and near, and the town 
grew very rapidly. In 181 o there were 6,000 people 
in the city; in 1826, 8,000, and in 1830, 11,000. In 
1833 the population was estimated at 15,000, w'ith 
1,712 dwelling houses. After the first 117 years — 
from 1666 to 1783 when the War for Independence 
closed — the village was a village still. In the next 
50 years it grew to be a town of 15,000. 

47. The Stone Quarries. 

Shoemaking seems to have aroused the people to 
make other things to sell. The quarries of brown- 
stone in the neighborhood of what are now Bloom- 
field and Clifton avenues, from which building- 
stone had been taken in small quantities even before 
the War for Independence, now became very busy 
places. Many tons of the stone were taken out and 
used for buildings in and near Newark, and much 
of it was sent to New York. Clifton avenue, from 
Bloomfield avenue, north, is built for half a block 
over one of the most famous of the old quarries. 
The going and coming of the stone sleds and wagons 
made that section of the town a bustling neighbor- 
hood in the early years of the last century. 



90 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

48. Flour Mills and Saw Mills. 

Two mills in which grain was ground into flour 
stood on Mill Brook, which ran down the hillside, 
and crossed Broad street at the point where Belle- 
ville avenue now begins. One of them was built 
by the first settlers and they looked on it as almost 
as great an undertaking as the building of their 
church. They appointed a special committee to 
go about the woods and fields to find stones that 
would do for mill stones. There were also two 
saw mills on the brook, a little east of Broad street. 
Near by a store was started, and thus, early in the 
last century, the upper section of the town became 
its busiest and most enterprising section. There were 
grist and saw mills at the southern end of the town 
very early in the eighteenth century. 

49. Iron Foundries; Tool Making. 

As the shops and mills grew in number, the call 
for tools to use in them increased. Iron was needed, 
and it was not long before the first iron foundry in 
the town was started, on the spot where the Second 
Presbyterian Church stands at the corner of Wash- 
ington and James streets, opposite Washington 
Park. A short distance away, in the middle of the 
park, is the statue of Seth Boyden, and if a statue 



THE STORY OF ITS AWAKENING. g\ 

can ever be said to stand on a spot where it feels at 
home, this one certainly may. 

50. Seth Boyden, Inventor. 

Moses Combs taught the people of Newark that 
they could make things to sell, and Seth Boyden 
made them tools wath which to work and helped 
them in many other ways, discovering new methods 
of doing things, methods that took less time and 
cost less money. The foundry mentioned above, at 
the corner of James and Washington streets, was 
not his; but shortly after he came to Newark, in 
1815, he started his first shop in Broad street a little 
north of Bridge where he made leather by the use 
of his owii machines. He made the first malleable 
iron in a foundry which he opened after he gave up 
leather making, in Bridge street, north side. From 
the Boyden foundries and shops, the last being in 
Orange street, east of Broad, came the tools and 
machines with which the Newark workers were able 
to make some of the best articles that were sold 
anywhere in the country. 

Newark needed very much a man like Seth 
Boyden, the inventor, just wdien he came. The 
effect of his inventions upon the town was wonder- 
ful. He was the first to make patent leather in this 



92 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 



country. On July 4, 1826, when all the townspeople 
were flocking to Military Park to witness the cele- 
bration, the greatest that had ever been held in 
Newark, of the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of 
the. Declaration of Independence, Seth Boyden, toil- 
ing in his foundry on Orange street, discovered how 
to make malleable iron for the first time in history, 
so far as utilitarian purposes go. 

51. Boyden a Many-sided Genius. 

Boyden was a deep thinker, and he used his brain 
to benefit mankind. Benjamin Franklin discovered 
by means of his kite that electricity came from the 
clouds to the earth; and many years afterward our 
Newark inventor found, without any kite and 
simply by means of a copper wire which he stuck 
in the ground in Irvington, that electricity went 
from the earth to the clouds. Nobody before 
Boyden knew that this was so. He found our 
strawberries small and, though pleasant to the taste, 
not half so sweet as they now are. He studied the 
strawberry and by careful cultivation produced the 
large and luscious fruit as we now know it. Many 
of the things he did would have made him a rich 
man had he lived to-day; but he seemed never to 
think of riches; he worked so hard and so earnestly, 



THE STORY OP ITS AWAKENING. 



93 



we are told by those who knew him, that he scarcely 
knew the difference between day and night. 

52. Coaches, Coach-lace, Saddlery. 

The commercial manufacture of coaches began 
soon after the shoemakers got to work. This and 
many other industries were struggling into a feeble 
life shortly after the War for Independence, as told 
at the beginning of this chapter. These first Newark 
coaches would seem clumsy affairs to us, but being 
well adapted to the needs of the time, they met with 
favor and were sold and sent to different parts of the 
country. Close on the heels of the coachmakers 
came the workers in coach-lace. Saddlery hardware 
also was needed and Newark began to make it. 

53. Hats, Jewelry, Beer. 

Then came hat making. In 1830 there were nine 
hat shops in Newark. Soon the manufacture of 
jewelry was begun. In 1836 there were four 
jewelry shops here and thirteen tanneries. Trunk 
making was also carried on early in the last century, 
but on a small scale. The brewing of beer was 
begun early, too, and in 1830 there were two 
breweries here. From that time on the number and 
kinds of shops, factories and mills increased rapidly. 



94 A SHORT HISrORV OF NEWARK. 

In 1777 there were 141 dwelling houses in 
Newark. In 1832 there were 1,542. 

54. Power from Water and from Animals. 

At first water power was used to drive machinery 
in factories, though horses and oxen sometimes 
furnished the power by treadmills. In the tread- 
mills- animals were made to try to walk on a place 
almost as steep as the roof of a house, on slats of 
wood which moved downward as fast as they were 
stepped on. The slats were fastened closely together 
so that the animals' hoofs would not go between 
them. As the slats moved, wheels beneath were 
turned. These wheels turned other wheels in the 
shop. Of course the poor animals never got to the 
top of the steep place. In fact, they never got much 
higher than they were when they started. If they 
grew tired the wheels went slower and slower, and 
the shop did not have enough power. Boys and 
men made the animals go faster and, sad to say, 
often used whips. About the year 1810, in a foundry 
on Market street, a blower was used, and an ox 
w^alked a treadmill to make the blower go. The first 
printing presses used in Newark were turned by 
hand. Steam for power in shops and factories did 
not come into use in Newark until about 1825. 



THE STORY OF ITS AWAKEXL^G. 95 

55. Ships; Whaling; Canal. 

Not all the new business life in Newark was 
on land. About 1839 the Passaic river became a 
very busy place. A hundred vessels of all sorts 
were owned here and plied between Newark and 
other ports. A little later, as many as 300 vessels 
passed in and out of Newark bay in one day. Two 
or three large whaling ships were fitted out here, 
and one of them, after a cruise of over two years, 
sailed proudly up the Passaic with a full cargo of 
3,000 barrels of whale oil and 15,000 pounds of 
whalebone. In 1832 the Morris canal was com- 
pleted, and this brought a great deal of business to 
the now thriving community. For years New^ark 
got nearly all of its coal, much of its wood for fuel, 
and other commodities by the canal. 

56. Eminent Men in Newark. 

Early in the last century Newark was known far 
and wide as a pleasant place to linger in and many 
prominent men lived here for a time or made visits 
here. The great French wit, statesman, diplomat 
and man of letters, Talleyrand, made his home here 
for about three years, from 1792 to 1795. He had 
fled from France and later from England. Blenner- 



96 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

hassett, a famous Eiiiglish immigrant whose latter 
years were made stormy and melancholy largely 
through his dealings with Aaron Burr, also lived 
here for a time. Probably Burr, who was a native 
of Newark, had something to do with Blenner- 
hassett's coming here. Peter Van Berckel, minister 
from the States of Holland to the United States 
iate in the eighteenth century, made his home in 
Newark, and died here. 

The noble Lafayette, who had so much to do with 
the successful termination of the War for Independ- 
ence, paid Newark a visit in 1824, and was given 
a great reception in Military Park. He was enter- 
tained before the reception in the Elisha Boudinot 
house .where the Public Service Terminal building 
now stands. Henry Clay was in Newark in 1833.' 
In 1852, Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, was 
received by the people of Newark with great cere- 
mony. Abraham Lincoln, while on his way to 
Washington just before his inauguration in 1861, 
made a short stop in this city, on the eve of Wash- 
ington's birthday. President Andrew Jackson and 
President Van Buren, when vice-president ; Generals 
Grant, Sherman, Sheridan and McClellan and others 
of the country's great men have also enjoyed 
Newark's hospitality during the last century. 



THE STORY OF ITS AWAKENING. 97 

57. Newark Awake. 

Such is the story of Newark's Awakening. If 
read thoughtfully it seems quite as wonderful as 
many a tale of fancy you will find. A hundred 
years ago and more Newark was like a little hive 
of drones; now it is a great hive of busy bees. 
Once it was like an idle boy, lying dozing in the 
sun; now it is like a huge giant, awake and active, 
with great muscles knotted on arms and legs and 
vast wealth piled up around him. One might almost 
say that Newark was discovered a second time ; that 
is, that the leading and progressive men discovered 
the communities very soon after the War for 
Independence and with high and prophetical resolve 
determined that Newark should not stay a village 
forever, but must awake, grow, expand. 



THE STORY OF ITS 
PROSPERITY 




NEWARK FROM THE PASSAIC BY NIGHl 
AN IMPRESSION. 



CHAPTER III. 
THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY 

Newark was a city in size as early as 1830, and 
still conducted itself as if it were a village. Town 
business was done very much as it had been ever 
since the settlers came, with town meetings twice a 
year, and oftener if necessary. There were few offi- 
cials to attend to the many kinds of public business. 
All who were entitled to vote joined in discussions 
at town meetings over every little thing that had to 
be done, and even the smallest things were often 
very tardy of accomplishment. Slowly and reluc- 
tantly the cautious leaders of Newark's prosperity 
realized they needed a better way of running their 
town, and in 1833 the first step was taken in this 
direction. Permission was obtained from the State 
Legislature to divide Newark into four wards, al- 
though the wards were not formally instituted until 
1836. For 160 years the community had been con- 
tent to be what is called, legally and politically, a 
township. With its division into four wards it 
became a town. 




Newark's First Mayor. 
William TTalsky. 



THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 103 

It is worth noting that this step in Newark's 
advancement had in it something that reminds one 
of the founding of the town — the number four. The 
settlers came from four towns in Connecticut, New 
Haven, Milford, Branford, and Guilford; they 
started their town at the four corners of what are 
now Market and Broad streets, each community 
taking a corner for itself. When the four wards 
were formed in 1833 the four historic corners were 
used again. The wards were made to start from 
the corners and were called North, South, East, and 
West. It is interesting also to note that in founding 
the town the settlers selected four texts from the 
Old Testament for their guidance. 

58. Newark Becomes a City: 1836 

The town form of government, so long in coming, 
lasted only three years, and then the real city began 
its life with much the same form of government that 
we have to-da}^ There was tremendous excitement 
at the time of the election on the adoption of a city 
charter on March 18. Three-fifths of the voters cast 
favorable ballots. This was the vote : 1,870 ''for" ; 
325 "against." The first mayor was William Hal- 
sey. The number of town officers was increased, 
there being more than ever for the community to do 



I04 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

in taking care of itself. Newark then had about 
20,000 inhabitants. 

For many years after the War for Independence, 
Newark had but two constables to preserve the 
peace. As the factories and their workers increased 
in number the town found it must have more men 
to see that order was kept, and about the time the 
city was formed there were twelve constables, who 
were the policemen of their day. They had big 
rattles which they sounded by whirling them around 
and around in the hand; these they "sprung" when 
there was trouble and they needed help. They had 
to call for assistance very often, for the boys and 
young men who worked in the rapidly multiplying 
shops liked to have fun at night. Sometimes the 
boys took the gates from in front of the houses 
facing on Military and Washington Parks, and 
burned them in the park in big bonfires. The con- 
stables had all they could do to stop such pranks. 

The whole country around was waking up. 
People in all the neighboring cities and towns were 
finding out what an immense country this is, and 
that there was a large number of people to be fed 
and clothed and housed and transported from place 
to i)lace. Newark's brightest men were growing to 
understand that if the town was to become powerful 



THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 105 

and helpful among its neighbors the people must 
work with a more united effort to make it so. New 
and quicker and better ways must be found for doing 
all the things that now had to be done to keep the 
city prosperous and to make it the equal of all its 
sister cities in the matters of neatness, comfort, 
intelligence and general progressiveness. 

59. The First Railroad. 

Just when the stage coach seemed to be flourish- 
ing most, railroads came. The first one in Newark 
was put in operation early in December, 1833. It 
ran from Jersey City to the corner of Broad and 
William streets, where the old City Hall stood until 
the winter of igoy-'o8. This City Hall in the early 
railroad days was the City Hotel. Trains going to 
Jersey City stopped first at Chandler's Hotel on 
Broad street, about opposite Mechanic street; next 
at Market street near where the Pennsylvania station 
now is; and then at the foot of Centre street, just 
before crossing the river. In those days it was not 
thought safe to run locomotives over some parts 
of the soft and spongy marshes, so at intervals along 
the way the cars were drawn by horses for short 
distances. This railroad was conducted by the New 
Jersey Railroad and Transportation Company. It 



io6 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

shook one up to ride on it almost as much as did 
the stage coach, the roadbed was so rough and the 
machinery so crude. 

The next year prominent men from different parts 
of northern New Jersey met in a Newark tavern 
to take the first steps for the building of the Morris 
and Essex Railroad. For many years this railroad 
ran its eastbound trains down Broad street from 
Division street, turning into Park Place opposite 
the present Central avenue and continuing on down 
Centre street, where passengers bound for New- 
York took the trams of the New Jersey Railroad 
and Transportation Company. There are numbers 
of Newarkers still living (in 191 6) who remember 
this. 

Newark, as well as other places in this part of the 
State, was really suffering for means to carry away 
the great ciuantities of goods it was making and 
selling, and to bring back from other places the 
things it was buying. 

The growth of the railroads, as the people real- 
ized their usefulness, slowly but surely put an end 
to the day of stage coaches ; and the big', clumsy 
vehicles with their four or six horses which came 
clattering up to the Newark hotels from Jersey City, 
New York, Morristown, Elizabeth and other places, 



THE STORY OF ITS PKOSTERITV. 107 

became fewer and fewer. Change and progress 
were in the air. Newark was reaching out and 
getting into closer touch with the rest of the world 
by means of railroads, the canal and shipping on 
river and bay. 

Next, the call became loud for better motive 
power for shops and mills than that to be had from 
a water-fall or from a slow-moving horse or ox, and 
steam was introduced, as was told in the last chap- 
ter. In 1836 there were one hundred and thirty-six 
factories in Newark and new ones were being opened 
every month. As it became easier to get to and 
from other places, the shops and factories found it 
easier to sell more goods, and more men and boys 
were constantly needed to work in the shops to make 
the increasing quantity of goods. 

60. The Young City Thrives. 

And so more people came to the town. They 
came from all the small places in this part of New 
Jersey, strong young men and boys who were tired 
of the quiet life of their native villages and weary 
of working on farms. Soon the town was filled to 
overflowing, and many a staid old mansion was 
turned into a boarding house to make room for the 
little army of workers that was now streaming in. 



iq8 a short history OF NEWARK. 

Not all the workers were found in this State. 
Foreigners were pouring into the country by way of 
New York and some of them upon landing heard of 
the busy little town on the Passaic and came here. 
Among the first were the Irish, of whom there had 
been a few from the early years of the nineteenth 
century. No one knows just when the first Irish 
immigrants reached Newark, l^ut there were prob- 
ably about thirty families of them here in 1828, the 
men and boys working in the foundries and in the 
coach factories, hat shops and as day laborers. The 
Germans, too, soon learned that work was to be had 
here, and as early as 1833 there were at least sev- 
enty-five from the Fatherland in Newark. These 
must have written letters home to tell others what 
a good place this was to live in, for only two years 
later there were three hundred Germans in Newark. 

For a time comparatively few people from other 
countries were to be found in Newark. All who 
came soon found work, and every now and then a 
sturdy workman who had come to this country 
with little in the world that he could call his own 
besides the clothes on his back began to lay the 
foundations of a fortune. Among them were some 
of the men who have helped make Newark the great 
and powerful city it is to-day. These were not only 



THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY^ 109 

willing to work but they were quick to discover new 
ways for making things. 

The first Irish wdio came to Newark did for the 
most part the work that Italians, Poles and Hun- 
garians now do here; and the Germans when they 
arrived in great numbers in the forties and fifties of 
the last century shared with the Irish in doing the 
hard manual labor. In 1848 and 1849 ^^^^ "'i the 
next few years the Germans came in great numbers. 
There was a revolution in Germany, and brave men 
and women who had sought for liberty and could 
not find it in the old country hoped to enjoy it here. 

In Harper s Magazine for October, 1876, we find 
an interesting picture of German life in this city. 
It says : ''A wondrous tide of Germans has flooded 
Newark, dropping into all the vacant lots [and there 
were very many of them then] and spreading itself 
over the flats to the east and the hills to the south 
and west, until it numbers one-third of the voting 
population. The German quarter on the hills is one 
of the interesting features of the city. A section 
nearly two miles square is a snug, compact, well- 
paved city within a city, giving evidence of neither 
poverty nor riches. The Germans who dwell here 
are chiefly employed in the factories and nearly all 
own their own houses. They live economically and 



no A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

save money. German habits and German customs 
appear on every side. The women carry heavy 
bundles, great baskets and sometimes barrels on 
their heads. Wherever there is room the Germans 
have gardens and raise vegetables for Newark 
market. At early morning the women may be seen 
driving their one-horse wagons into town.". 

61. Hard Times of 1837. 

In iS^/ Newark was stricken by the hard times 
which swept over the entire country. Some of the 
city's industries suffered severely and have not fully 
recovered to this day. Before the manufacturers 
of certain lines of goods could recover from the 
misfortunes other cities and towns had begun to 
make the same goods and had taken the markets that 
had formerly been supplied by Newark factories. 

In 1837 the population of the city was over 
20,000, and the next year was 4,000 less. Business 
was poor, shops were closed and many people went 
to other cities and towns looking for work. Not 
until about 1843 ^^^^^ the city regain its former vigor. 
In i860 there were 73,000 people here. The next 
year there were but 70,000, for many Newark men 
had shouldered muskets and marched off to the 
defense of the Union in the Civil War. In 1863 



THE STORY OF FfS PROSPERITY. in 



more men went to the war, and the number of inhab- 
itants dropped to 68,000. In 1864 it had risen again 
to 70,000, and at the end of the year 1865, the war 
being- over, and the soldiers returned home, the 
population was estimated at 87,428. 

62. A Time of Prosperity. 

The town was teeming with life in 1849. -^ 
shrewd observer wrote : 'Teople appear to be flock- 
ing from every direction to share with us in the 
luxury of living in so pleasant and beautiful a city 
as Newark, where anyone who is willing to work 
can earn enough to make ends meet and have some- 
thing over at the end of the year, if economy is 
exercised." This writer calls those times ''years of 
plenty." In 1845 there were over 3,800 dwellings 
in the city. 

63. How They Fought Fires. 

Newark in the very early days and until after the 
War for Independence, did not have many fires, so 
it did not pay much heed to the talk of the wise men 
who often said a fire department w^as needed. 
During the War for Independence the British sol- 
diers now and then burned buildings in the town ; 
but after the war was over few thought there w^ould 



112 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

be any more serious danger from flames, until a 
handsome home fronting on Mihtary Park burned 
down in 1798. Soon after this a Httle hand-engine 
was bought and a fire company formed. Long hose 
was not used in those days. The httle engine was 
taken as close to the fire as possible and short iron 
or wooden pipe thrust into cisterns, used to throw 
the w^ater on the flames. Horses were not thought 
of for hauling the engine to the fires. The men of 
the fire company enjoyed hauling the engine them- 
selves, pulling it by a long rope. 

64. The Old Hand Engines. 

During the War of 181 2 there w^re several fires 
in the city, which many thought were started by 
someone who sympathized with the British. Soon 
after this war a second engine was bought, and a 
second fire company formed. Both companies 
wanted the fine new engine and there was a great 
wrangle about it. Finally, to settle the dispute it 
was decided to toss up a coin and cry ''heads" or 
"tails." The first and oldest company won the toss 
and got the new engine. In 18 19 a third engine 
was bought. This was made in Newark and the 
people were very proud of it for that reason. 



THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 113 

65. The Great Fire of 1836. 

In 1836 there were half a dozen hand engines 
and as many companies. It was in that year that 
Newark had to fight its first big fire. On the south 
side of Market street, a httle east of Broad, were 
a number of boardinp- houses, and in one of these, 
a small, two-story frame structure, a boarding place 
for Germans, the fire began. The flames spread 
rapidly. Fire companies came from New' York, 
Railway, Elizabeth and Belleville. At one time it 
looked as if the entire eastern part of the city would 
be consumed. The firemen fought bravely for five 
hours. Two naval officers who came from Eliza- 
beth tried to stop the flames by blowing up buildings 
in their path, but this did no more good than it did 
in the great San Francisco fire following the earth- 
quake of 1906. Nearly all the buildings on the 
block bounded by Broad, Mulberry, Market and 
Mechanic streets were destroyed, as well as the 
buildings on the south side of Mechanic street. The 
State Bank building on the corner of Broad and 
Mechanic streets and the First Presbyterian Church 
were saved only after a most desperate battle. The 
town was exhausted after the fearful fight, and 
business was at a standstill for a few days. It was 
years before the burned district was rebuilt. 



114 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 



In 1845 tlie city had another great alarm. Five 
houses were destroyed on Broad street opposite 
Trinity Church and the church was on fire seven 
times from sparks. Highly colored pictures were 
made of this fire and no doubt were eagerly bought, 
for colored pictures were something quite new at 
that time and naturally popular. 

66. The First Steam Fire-Engines. 

The firemen were all volunteers, and some of the 
companies were composed of the most prominent 
men in the city. Nearly every house had its fire 
buckets, made of leather, and you usually found 
them hanging from a peg in the front hall. They 
were as familiar objects in homes as hat racks are 
in the homes of the present generation; 

The first steam fire engine was bought in i860. 
The volunteer firemen were not pleased to see it 
come, and Newark was slower than some other cities 
in taking up with this invention. After the first 
one came, another soon followed ; then the old com- 
panies began slowly to disappear ; and gradually the 
paid fire department which we know to-day, one 
of the best in all the country, was built up. 

67. One of the Old Schools. 

One of the old schools of Newark, a pay school, 
stood on the south side of Market street a little east 



THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 115 



of Halsey. It was built in 1804. A little later the 
town decided to expend $500 every year for the 
schooling of poor children. 

When the town was made a city in 1836, four 
free schools were started, one in each ward. These 
schools were not at first in buildings by themselves, 
but were opened wherever rooms could be conven- 
iently rented. Children of the poor went to these 
four schools, which for a time did not grow very 
rapidly, as parents did not like to send their children 
to them ; it seemed like accepting a charity from the 
city, and people with any feeling of independence 
did not like to have everybody know they were too 
poor to pay for schooling. This feeling in time 
passed away: for parents gradually realized that 
every family had a right to send its children to the 
public schools, since the head of every family paid 
taxes for their maintenance. 

68. More Schools. 

There were so many people in Newark in the 
thirties of the last century that the question of 
schooling became a more and more important one. 
Workmen who came here from other cities and 
towns complained that there were no good schools 
for their children. The free schools were not very 



ii6 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

well managed/ and the city authorities began to 
realize that they must pay more attention to educa- 
tional matters. When Newark became a city a 
school committee was provided. 

69. The Board of Education. 

In 1850 this school committee determined that 
still better schools must be had, so the Legislature 
was asked to make a law permitting Newark 
to spend more money for this purpose. The next 
year the Board of Education was established and 
then the city began to build school houses. It has 
never stopped building them since, and it probably 
never will. There are many more children in 
Newark's schools to-day than there were men, 
women and children in all the city in 1850. In 
1 9 16 nearly 65,000 pupils wxre on the public school 
rolls. Early in the fifties the High School was 
established at the corner of Linden and Washington 
streets. It was the second high school in the United 
States. Newark's summer schools were the first to 
be opened in the country. 

70. Overcoming an Old Idea. 

But, as already said, it took a long time after this 
to get most of the people of the city to send their 



THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. n? 



children to the pubHc schools. The old idea that 
it was something of a disgrace to go to a public or 
''common" school had taken very firm root, and did 
not die for many years. It is a very good thing that 
such ideas as this are gone forever. 

In 1848 the Newark Library Association opened 
its doors. Since then it has been possible for New- 
ark people to get books to read without buying them. 
The Library Association was a private concern, 
not owned by the city. It was not, however, con- 
ducted for the financial profit of its members, but for 
the intellectual benefit of the subscribers. Unless 
you were a member of the Association you had to 
pay something for every book you took out. This 
went on for forty years, when under a new law, the 
Free Public Library was started. Since then, if 
Newark people do not have books to read it is 
because they do not go to the library and ask for 
them. 

71. When the Passaic Was Beautiful. 
It is hard to-day to realize the rich and sylvan 
beauty of the Passaic river in the days when Newark 
was a small but busy city in the two decades before 
the Civil War. The banks were charming with 
their stretches of soft green, dotted here and there 
with groves and unrestrained undergrowth. Most 



it8 a short history OF NEWARK. 

of the dwellings were the homes of prominent fami- 
lies. They were to be met with all the way from 
where Kearny Castle now is, on the east bank of 
the river, to the stretches opposite Belleville and 
beyond ; while on the Newark side they were 
scattered along the hillside north from the neigh- 
borhood of Bridge street. The river was as clear as 
crystal. Many of the families living near the stream 
had their own little docks and boathouses and paid 
their visits to each other back and forth across the 
Passaic by means of boats. There was good fishing 
in the waters and good hunting in the woods along 
the banks. Fishermen made good catches of shad 
with nets. It was a charming", peaceful neighbor- 
hood, and it is no wonder people were attracted from 
New York City to build their houses on the banks 
of the Passaic, in Newark and further up, from the 
1750's for a century and a quarter thereafter. 

72. Cockloft Hall. 

About 1800 Gouverneur Kemble owned a stately 
mansion on the Newark side of the river. It stood 
at a commanding point on the river's bank, near 
what is now the northeast corner of Gouverneur 
street and Mt. Pleasant avenue. 

It stands there still, although it is much changed. 



120 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

Hither came one of the most famous American 
writers of his time, Washington Irving, and with 
him John Paulding and others. Kemble used to 
entertain them in a pretty httle summer house which 
stood on the edge of the hillside and overlooked the 
river. The young men — for Irving and his com- 
panions were young then^ — used to delight to look 
out upon the beautiful scene and enjoy themselves 
together. Irving was writing his Salmagundi 
papers at this time, and in them he calls the Gouver- 
neur street house "Cockloft Hall," and the Kembles 
"the Cocklofts." 

Forty years afterwards people living along the 
river formed a reading circle, influenced perhaps by 
the literary spirit which Irving's stay in the neigh- 
borhood had given the locality. They used to gather 
from far up and down stream for meetings of this 
circle. In those days the river neighborhood from 
Cockloft Hall northward was considered out of 
town, for houses were few and far apart. 

Traces of the good old riverside days may be 
found by the observant stroller to-day (1916). A 
little of the old order of things invests what is still 
known as the Gully road, which runs along the 
northern edge of Mount Pleasant Cemetery. It was 
here that Henry William Herbert lived, at the north- 



THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 



east corner of the present cemetery. He was known 
fifty years ago the country over as a writer, under 
the name of Frank N. Forrester. 

There were many other people in the city in those 
days who loved good books, good pictures and good 
music, but they were split up into little companies 
like that along the river. They enjoyed those things 
among their own circles, while the city, as a whole, 
was too busy in its shops and factories to think much 
of the finer things or to spend time on books and 
pictures and music. Newark, from early in the last 
century, was little more than a great workshop until 
near the close of the ninteenth century. It was so 
busy with its shops and mills that it did not pay 
much attention to making itself neat and attractive. 
Nowadays we know that we must do something 
besides work; we must make our city something 
more than a huge factory. We can be better men 
and women and children, and happier, too, if our 
city is more beautiful to live in. And we are trying 
to make it so. 

73. On the Eve of Civil War. 

The people of Newark, in common with most 
others living in this country, began, as early as i860, 
to realize that a crisis in the affairs of the nation 



122 .] SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

was at hand. There had been many signs, for sev- 
eral years, that a very grave problem would soon 
have to be settled, but the people had continued to 
hope that in some way the difficulties between 
North and South might.be adjusted without blood- 
shed. By the time of Abraham Lincoln's election 
to the Presidency, in the fall of i860, thinking men 
and women wore solemn faces, and they often asked 
each other if this man whom the country had chosen 
to fill its highest office, were great enough to carry 
it through the dark days that were at hand. 

Newark was privileged to see this man a few 
weeks before he took the oath of office as President. 
While on his way to Washington, Mr. Lincoln left 
his train at Morris and E*ssex station and attended 
a reception given him by the officers of the city 
government and the leading citizens. This was on 
February 21, 1861. Mr. Lincoln was driven clown 
Broad street to Chestnut street depot during a heavy 
snow storm in a coach drawn by four white horses. 
One of those in the carriage with him was the illus- 
trious Colonel Ellsworth, of the New York Zouaves, 
who was soon to be shot down while in the act of 
removing a Confederate flag from the staff of a 
hotel in Alexandria. The president-elect was 
i>rected with ^reat enthusiasm. The occasion was 



THE SrORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 123 

described by a Xew York newspaper of the day in 
the following language: 

'The scene in Broad street while the procession 
was passing was magnificent ; although the crowd 
was great, the width of the street prevented any 
confusion, and this noble street, of which the people 
of Newark are justly proud, must have made a 
favorable impression upon the mind of ^Ir. Lincoln. 
There were not less than twenty-five thousand people 
in the streets. '^ '^ '•= Altogether, the Newark 
reception reflected credit upon the city, and was. we 
predict, as agreeable an ovation as ]Mr. Lincoln has 
received since he commenced his pilgrimage to the 
\Miite House." 

At the reception the Mayor of the city made 
an address of welcome to the distinguished visitor. 
]\Ir. Lincoln spoke a few words in reply. They were 
good words and were no doubt remembered by those 
who heard them, when the times of greatest stress 
and trial, which were then so near, actually arrived. 
They were as follows: 

"Mr. ]\layor, I thank you for this reception you 
have given me in your cily. The only response I 
can make is that I will bring a heart similarly 
devoted to the Uniun. ^^^ith my own ability I can 
not hope to succeed ; I hope to be sustained by Divine 



124 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

Providence in the work I have been called upon to 
perform for this great, free, happy and intelligent 
people. Without this I can not succeed. I thank 
you again for this kind reception." 

From that day the majority of the Newark people 
never lost faith in "Old Abe." They did not forget 
what he had said about needing help. They 
responded unselfishly to his call for soldiers, and did 
all they could to help hold up his hands in the 
terrible days that were to come. 

74. A Great Public Meeting. 

In the stormy hours just before the War for 
Independence, meetings of patriots were held in the 
Court House which was then a plain old building on 
Broad street nearly opposite the First Presbyterian 
Church. There, fiery speeches were made, and there 
were adopted the first resolutions passed in all New 
Jersey supporting Congress in its efforts to win 
independence. Ninety years afterwards the people 
of Newark were again summoned to give their aid 
in carrying on a great war, and once more patriots 
gathered at the Court House. This time the gather- 
ing was far larger than any of those held just before 
the War for Independence, too large to get into the 
Court House ; so it assembled outside in a triangular 



126 A SHORT HISTORY OP NEWARK. 

Space at the junction of Market street and Spring- 
field avenue. Nearly all of Newark's leading men 
were there, and many of them made patriotic 
addresses. Men said it was one of the most note- 
worthy gatherings they ever knew. 

New^ark was more united against the common 
foe than it had heen during the War for Independ- 
ence, for in Newark in 1776 there were many 
Tories. In mid-April, 1861, while the people were 
not unanimous in their suppcjrt of the Union, the 
great majority were ready to make every sacrifice 
to support the constitution, and people of every race 
and religious creed and of every walk in life gath- 
ered at the great court house meeting. 

The day after the great meeting Major Anderson, 
the gallant defender of Fort Sumter, came to 
Newark. He had intended to be present at the 
meeting, but had misunderstood the date. He was 
enthusiastically received, nearly the whole city turn- 
ing out to greet and honor him. 

75. Newark's Southern Trade. 

Ever since Southern planters early in the last 
century in journeying through Newark on their way 
to New York had noticed the fine shoes made here 
and had ordered some to be sent to them in their 



THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 127 

Southern homes, Newark had been sending Its 
manufactures into Dixie. For more than a half 
century it had been supplying the South with a large 
part of its shoes, for blacks and for whites, and had 
also been sending great quantities of carriages, 
harnesses and saddlery hardware to the same region. 
Many Newark manufacturers feared their business 
would be swept away by a war between North and 
South, and did not see where they were going to get 
other business. They opposed the war before it 
came, and it was some time after it began before 
they were reconciled to it. But once the war was 
well begun business came to Newark in the way of 
contracts for materials needed for the soldiers. 
Newark was a very busy place during the Civil War, 
for its factories were kept humming getting out 
vast quantities of leather belts, buckles, harnesses, 
saddles, shirts and cartridge boxes for the army ; and 
boys and girls were set at work in the shops while 
their older sisters, mothers, aunts and the old folks 
took work home with them. 

76. Going to the Front. 

The city became terribly in earnest over the war. 
It did not rest with simply making things, but sent 
many of its youths and men to the front to fight, 



12S A SliUKJ HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

not a few of whom never came l)ack. Boys scarcely 
out of school and some who had not completed 
their studies in the public schools, joined a regiment 
and put on the uniform. 

For four long years Newark streets resounded 
to the tread of marching feet. Regiment after regi- 
ment was either recruited here or passed through 
this city on its Avay southward. Part of the time 
tents were standing in Military Park and scores of 
young men went there to enlist. The park had been 
a training ground for the settlers nearly two hun- 
dred years before, when the men were required 
to assemble there and drill that they might l^e ready 
to fight the Indians should the savages become 
quarrelsome. Over its turf patriot soldiers and 
hostile redcoats marched during the War for Inde- 
pendence ; and now, after nearly a century, it was 
again the place for warlike preparations. 

77. Camp Frelinghuysen. 

Alany of the regiments formed in the northern 
part of the State w^ere prepared for service at Camp 
Frelinghuysen. This camp was along the western 
Q(\gt of the Canal, from Orange street or there- 
abouts nearly to Bloomfield avenue. ( llie students 
of Barringer High School erected a tablet to indi- 



THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 129 

cate the site, in Branch Brook Park on Memorial 
Day, 19T2). Newark was then a very Hvely place. 
As the war went on the people came to know that the 
departure of a regiment was a very serious thing. 
At first they had looked upon the marching away 
of troops as a time for something like picnicking. 
Soon, however, as the accounts of battles came in 
and the long list of dead and wounded bore the 
names of many who had marched out of Newark, the 
faces that looked on departing troops were often 
stained with tears. 

78. War's Serious Side. 

War had become a very serious and terrible thing. 
Mothers, fathers, sisters and ])rothers, who stood 
on the streets to wave good-by to their dear ones, 
often went home to pray for their safety. One Sun- 
day morning a regiment about to go to war marched 
from Camp Frelinghuysen to Washington Park, 
where it rested as the people of the Second Presby- 
terian Church came out and bade it farewell. Before 
another Sunday came around that regiment had 
fought in a dreadful battle, Antietam, and many of 
its brave men had given their lives for their country 
on that bloody field. 

The city could not separate itself from the great 



130 A SHORT IIISTORy Of NEWARK. 

Struggle even if it would have done so. For a long- 
period there was a hospital in a large factory build- 
ing near the river, not far from the foot of Centre 
street and another just near the Market street bridge 
over the river. A public-spirited Newarker, Marcus 
L. Ward, afterward Governor of New Jersey, was 
responsible for their establishment. He was called 
''The Soldiers' Friend." Wounded soldiers w^ere 
always to be seen about the streets, as the doctors 
made them seek light and air as soon as they were 
well enough to leave their cots. 

79. General Kearny. 

Quite early in the war one of the most dashin^* 
heroes who went out of all the North into the fray, 
General Philip Kearny, was killed and his body 
brought here, to his home in what is now Kearny. 
Kearny Castle as we see it to-day. looks very much 
as it did when the body of the hero was brought 
l^ack to it and later taken from it for l)urial. General 
Kearny was born on lower Broadway, New York, 
where there are now nothing but skyscrapers. Much 
of his childhood and boyhood he passed in the 
Kearny house in this city, which until a few years 
ago stood on Belleville avenue nearl}^ opposite 
Kearnv street. The grounds behind the house 



THE STORY OP ITS PROSPERITY. 131 

extended to the river's edge. When Kearny, a 
grown man, came back from his campaigns 
with the French in Algiers, his spirited horses 
were for a time kept in stables back of the 
Kearny house on Belleville avenue. Old men, most 
of them now dead, used to tell of seeing those met- 
tlesome steeds galloping and curveting over the 
hillside where are now houses packed closely 
together. The local Board of Education, upon the 
completion of the Newark State Normal School on 
the site of the Kearny Homestead, in 191 2, set up 
a tablet on the building to the memory of General 
Kearny. The general built what is now called 
Kearny Castle, in Kearny, a little while before the 
war and lived there part of the time. There were 
few houses on either side of the river, and as the 
general looked westward across the river from the 
castle he saw a delightful stretch of open country 
with here and there a comfortable farm house. 

It was a beautiful place for a mansion, crowning 
the lower end of the long ridge on which Kearny 
and Arlington are now perched, and it is no wonder 
the general loved the neighborhood. A little farther 
up the ridge was the home of his aristocratic neigh- 
bors, the Rutherfurds. The Rutherfurd house is 
now the main building of the Soldiers' Home. In 



132 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

that Home to-day are some of the l^rave men who 
foiig-ht in Kearny's l3rigade and who grew to love 
him for the brilhant and fearless leader that he was. 
On the (lay that Kearny's body was taken from 
the castle, to be liuried in New York, from Trinity 
Church, it was borne on a gun carriage, and his 
war horse, with saddle empty, was led behind. 

The cemeteries of Newark are thickly studded 
with the graves of brave soldiers and sailors who 
f(mght in that fearful four years' war. General 
Kearny's remains were, in 191 3, removed to the 
National Cenietery at Arlington, Va. 

80. The First Horse Car Line. 

Newark's first horse car line ran from the Market 
street depot of the Pennsylvania Railroad, up 
Market street to Broad, along Broad to Orange 
street and thence to Roseville and Orange. The 
company that built it was known as the Orange 
and Newark Horse Car Company. The first and 
trial trip over the line was made on May 2^^. 1862. 
On June 6 of the same year the cars began to run 
for the accommodation of the public and the sour.d 
of the car bell or gong has been heard in Newark 
streets, with steadily increasing volume, ever since. 
The town was much upset for a time after the cars 



THE STORY OF TTS PROSPERTTY. 133 

l)egan to run, for many persons did not approve of 
their being used on Sundays. This prejudice died 
nut, as many, many others had disappeared before it. 

81. Newark's Drinking Water. 

There are few cities in all the United States that 
have better drinking water than Newark. People 
from all parts of the country when they visit 
Newark speak of the excellence of the water, and 
often tell how inferior is the water they have to 
drink at home. 

82. Old Wells and Reservoirs. 

In the old days the settlers dug wells, and there 
are traces of some of these wells to be found around 
the city to this day. But they. have not been used 
for drinking purposes for many a year. As long- 
ago as 1800 Newark built reservoirs and the water 
was led from them to houses and other buildings 
through wooden water pipes laid in the streets. 
Now and then workmen digging in the streets find 
traces of these clumsy old pipes. 

The first reservoir was on the north side of 
Orange street a few blocks above High street. 
Later the city built one on the heights of Belleville, 
pumping water to it from wells that were driven 



134 ^'i SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

close to the Passaic river. You can still see the 
pumping- station on the river's edge in Belleville. 

In the early eighties of the last century the people 
hegan to be troubled over their water supply. They 
could see that the sewage which was being poured 
into the river by all the cities and towns along the 
banks above Newark must sooner or later make the 
river water very foul and unfit to drink. 

83. The Present Supply of Water. 

After a very long time a new supply was found, 
in the beautiful country at the northern end of the 
State known as the Pequannock V^alley. Our water 
is now brought from that valley nearly thirty miles 
through two big steel pipes, one of them four feet 
in diameter and the other about three and a half, 
either of them big enough for a small l)oy or girl 
to stand up in without bumping the head. The 
water rights, the pipes and all the other things 
necessary to l)ring the water to this city and take 
it through pipes into people's houses are worth ten 
million dollars. There is also a fine reservoir at 
Great Notch, north of Montclair, where water for 
Newark is brought from the Pequannock Valley and 
stored. And the people are thankful that, even if it 
did cost a large sum, their drinking water is pure 



THE STORY OF ITS FROSFERTTV. i35 



and good and abundant and brings no sickness to 
those who use it. Newark's holdings in the water- 
shed are being increased as rapidly as possible, and 
everything that financial sagacity and engineering 
science can devise is being done to increase the sup- 
ply of water and to keep it pure. 

The- purity of the water that Newark now enjoys 
was made a matter of record over a hundred years 
ago, when Alexander Hamilton sought to learn 
where the purest and softest water in all the States 
then established was to be had. Hamilton was 
Secretary of the Treasury at the time and deeply 
interested in promoting manufactures. Pure and 
soft water was said to be essential to the manufac- 
ture of the best leather, and Hamilton hoped to 
encourage leather making in this country by showing 
manufacturers where the streams best adapted for 
their purposes were located. So, under his direction, 
the Government employed a number of American 
and English chemists to go about over the entire 
area of the States, examining the streams. In the 
report made by the chemists it was found that the 
waters of the Pequannock watershed in this State 
were declared to be the purest. 

84. Street Lighting. 
Until after Newark became a city, in 1836, it had 
no street lights, and people out and about the town 



136 A SHORT HISTORY O F NEWARK. 

after nightfall had to pick their steps very carefully. 
They often carried clumsy lanterns, made of tin or 
some other cheap metal, the light coming through 
holes punched in the tin. Tallow candles were 
chiefly used for lighting. Broad and Market streets 
and the space ahout Military Park must have looked 
strange with the people lighting their way along 
with lanterns, which glowed like so many fireflies. 

85. The First Gas Light. 

It was not until 1847 that anything like system- 
atic street lighting was tried. In that year four 
miles of gas mains were laid in the principal streets 
and gas was burned here for the first time. People 
did not believe it was possible to make gas, send 
it through pipes in the earth to stores and houses, 
and then burn it. They thought the idea a foolish 
dream. When they saw the lights burning, how- 
ever, they began slowly to realize that it was not 
the inventors, but they, who had been foolish in 
opposing so useful an invention. Of course, once 
it was shown that gas would burn and give what 
was then considered a great and glorious light, there 
was an urgent demand for more pipes in the streets 
and the mains were rapidly extended. 



THE STORY OP ITS PKOSl'T^RfTV. i37 



86. Edison in Newark. 

"Almost everything- is made in Newark that is 
made by man," wrote a visitor in the seventies. 
"Take a tour among the workshops and you will 
no longer wonder why New^ark's banks ne\er fail. 
There are prodigious manufactories of hats, silks, 
iron works, soap, tin, brushes, steam engines and 
so forth. The records of the Patent Office at Wash- 
ington show that Newark has contributed more 
useful in\entions to industrial progress than any 
other American city. In one year, 1873, upward of 
one hundred patents were issued to Newarkers 

alone." 

'The making of telegraph instruments has been 
attended with important inventions," the visitor 
went on to say; 'Thomas A. Edison, who originated 
the gold stock indicator used in Wall Street, made 
thirty-six hundred of them in Newark in three years, 
many of them being exported to Europe." 

Edison did much of his experimenting upon 
electric lighting in Newark in a shop in Mechanic 
street. He invented the speaking part of the tele- 
phone in New^ark and also the quadruplex telegraph. 
By this last device four messages may be sent over 
one w^ire at the same moment without interfering 
with each other. The first incandescent light was 



138 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

made in Menlo Park shortly after Mr. Edison 
removed to Newark. 

87. Edward Weston. 

The whole United States, and in fact all the 
world, owes much to Newark for the development 
of the electric light. Mr. Edison, as has just been 
stated, made many of his experiments upon electric 
lighting in his Newark shop, and there was another 
genius working busily here on somewhat the same 
lines at about the same time. This was Edward 
Weston, whose great factories at Waverly are now 
familiar to railroad travelers passing eastward and 
westward in and out of the city. In the late 
seventies of the last century he came to Newark and 
soon had a workshop on Washington street very 
near to Market. There he and a few other men 
opened the first factory in all the country devoted to 
the making of dynamo-electric machines and similar 
apparatus. The business grew rapidly. 

88. Making Electric Lighting Possible. 

His machines took the place of all the older and 
far more costly apparatus. Then he improved 
electric lamps themselves, both arc and incandescent. 
He invented ways of making them that were much 



THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 139 

less costly than any that had been employed before. 
It is not too much to say that Mr. Weston was one 
of the very first in all the world so to harness 
electricity as to make the light produced by it really 
of practical daily use at a moderate cost. 

The world owes the photographic film to the 
genius of a Newarker, the Rev. Hannibal Goodwin, 
for many years rector of the House of Prayer. 
After years of patient toil in a little laboratory in 
the rectory, he perfected his great discovery, in 
1887. Then followed many years of heartbreaking- 
struggle for a patent, and later in the courts. It 
w^as not until 1914 that the Goodwin right to the 
invention was fully and finally established. Mr. 
Goodwin had been dead a dozen years. It was his 
invention that made motion pictures possible. Late 
in 19 1 4 a tablet in Mr. Goodwin's memory was un- 
veiled in the first floor corridor of the Newark Free 
Public Library by the Essex Camera Club and 
friends. Part of the inscription reads : "He fore- 
saw the possibilities of photography as an instru- 
ment in education and devoted his inventive talent 
to the improvement of that art." 

Another Newarker who has his name indelibly 
inscribed on the roll of fame was the late John P. 
Holland, who died in Newark a few years ago. He 



140 A SHORT HISTORY Of NEWARK. 

was one uf the pioneers in the stndy of snbmarine 
navigation. His first snbmersible was built in 1875. 
His design was the first accepted by the United 
States GoA^ernment, in 1900, after a long series of 
most severe and exacting tests. 

89. Industrial Expositions. 

Newark's industrial, commercial and mechanical 
achievements during the last half-century have been 
far too numerous and diversified to permit of even 
passing mention. As Newark's genius for manufac- 
turing aw^akened into active and aggressive life soon 
after the War for Independence, so, at the conclusion 
of the Civil War the industries entered upon a new 
epoch of hitherto unprecedented prosperity. In 
1872, a great industrial exposition was held here, 
in a huge building on the west side of Washington 
street, between Marshall and Court streets. It 
opened on August 20 and continued for fifty-two 
days, attracting vast throngs. Among the distin- 
guished visitors were General U. S. Grant, and at 
an earlier date. Horace Greeley. The latter, in a 
speech, told of a visit to Newark in the early 1830's 
when it "was a smart, rather straggling but busy 
village on week days of about ten thousand inhabi- 
tants, one-twelfth of its present [1872 J population, 



T[lll STOKY Ol' ITS I'ROSL'IlKITY . 141 

and hearing- about the same characteristics it does 
now." 

The exposition proved a profound influence for 
the advancement of Newark's industrial welfare. 
Newarkers were apparently quite as surprised as 
visitors at the variety and volume of the commu- 
nity's manufactures. More than a generation was 
allowed to elapse before another exhibition on lines 
fittingly ambitious, was held, and that was in 1912, 
in May, in the First Regiment Armory. Another, 
in the spring- of 19 14, did not aj^proach tliat of two 
years before in importance. Still another is now 
in the making as a feature of the two hundred and 
fiftieth anniversary celebration. 

The Newark Board of Trade was organized in 
Library Hall, in Market street, on February 24, 
1868, and it has been a powerful factor in the pro- 
motion of Newark's material interests ever since. 
The United States census of 1910 showed Newark 
to be eleventh among the cities of the country in 
the aggregate value of its annual manufactured 
products. At the opening of 19 16 it had more than 
250 distinct lines of industry. This city ranks 
ahead of thirty states in the total value of its manu- 
factured products. 

Newark has long been peculiarly receptive to the 



142 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

tenets and principles of organized labor. As early 
as 1804 a number of Newark shoemakers were 
members of a cordwainers' association which had 
its headquarters in New York. The earliest known 
labor union in Newark is the Hatters' Union, 
organized in 1844. The first movement of record 
for the centralization of labor interests came in 
1881, when the Trades Assembly was organized. 
The Knights of Labor practically took the place of 
the Trades Assembly in 1882, and in 1890 the Cen- 
tral Labor Union displaced the Knights. 

The growth in population, from the Civil War's 
end, shows an ever-increasing gain. Li twenty- 
five years the city's population rose from 87,413 to 
181,830, in 1890. In the next decade, the increase 
was about 65,000. Since 1900 Newark's popula- 
tion has increased over 130,000, the total now being 
over 375,000. These last figures, however, are now 
generally believed to be altogether too low. The 
Newark public school enrollment is now (February, 
191 6) fully 70,000. For years a close estimate of 
the city's total of population has been arrived at by 
multiplying the school enrollment by .601, which 
would make the population over 420,000. That it 
is not far from 400,000 is quite probable. Newark 



THE STORY OF ITS PROSPEIUTY. i43 



now (1916) ranks fourteenth in population among 
the cities of the country. 

90. Transportation. 

The amazing development of the industries has, 
of course, been the prime factor in this phenomenal 
advance, but in this moment of our high prosperity 
we must not forget to pay our proper tribute to the 
sagacity of the founders, who by their shrewdness 
and prevision, so happily placed the community as 
to make its ultimate greatness only a matter of 
time. Closely supplementing the multiplication of 
factories and workshops has been the improvement 
in transportation. The horse cars, inaugurated in 
Civil War times, endured for about a quarter of a 
century, the steam railroad facilities being on the 
gain all through that period. Then came trolley 
cars, latterly the rapid transit line from Saybrook 
place to New York, and only, as one might say, the 
other day (in the spring of 191 5) ^ arrived the new 
factor, the jitney, whose future no man can satis- 
factorily predict. 

But by far the most far-reaching evolution in 
the line of better traffic facilities in the "Greater 
Newark" section is the Public Service Terminal in 
Park Place. It permits of a comprehensive re- 



144 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

routing of all the trolley lines, and is confidently 
expected to go a great way toward the elimination 
of congestion in the city's centre during the rush 
hours. The utilization of the bed of the Morris 
Canal for trolley service in and near Newark would 
also work material relief. 

Tremendous has been the increase of street mile- 
age since the Civil War. At the opening of 1916 
Newark had nearly 302 miles of paved streets and 
fifty-six miles of ungraded and unpaved streets, 
with an average width of sixty feet. Since 191 1 
a City Plan Commission has been busily employed 
trying to evolve a consistent and far-seeing scheme 
for the harmonious development of the whole 
municipal scheme, paying some attention to simi- 
lar suggestions for the entire county because of its 
close inter-relation with Newark. In its annual 
report, made public in January, 191 6, this Commis- 
sion makes many suggestions for the widening of 
many of the leading thoroughfares, for the exten- 
sion of others and for the straightening of still 
others. The Commission, manifestly with an eye 
to the absorption by the city of several smaller 
municipalities along its borders, confidently predicts 
a population of one million by 1940. Thus we see 
Newark straining at its bounds, demanding more 



THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 145 

freedom of movement, greater ease in going to and 
fro. 

91. Port Newark Terminal. 

The whole community looks forward to the actual 
utilization of the great Port Newark Terminal 
upon the edge of the Newark meadows upon which 
v$2, 500,000 has already been spent. This great 
enterprise will go far to realizing the dreams of 
public spirited citizens for the last forty years — of 
a Newark port from and to which ocean-going 
vessels from all climes shall ply; one of the chief 
gateways of the country, giving access to the ports 
of all the known world. 

The Passaic Valley Trunk Sewer, a factor for 
more healthful conditions of almost inestimable im- 
portance, should l)e virtually completed by the close 
of 1917. J 

It is stated on good authority that Newark, at 
the opening of 19 16, had a greater park area (in- 
cluding both the city and the county recreation 
places within its borders) than any other city in the 
United States. There were at that time twenty city 
parks with a total area of a little under twenty acres; 
five county parks, of rare attractiveness and natural 
as well as artificial beauty, with a total of over 641 



146 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

acres. The Essex County Park System is regarded 
by the nation's foremost experts as one of the most 
beautiful and most competently administered in the 
country. 

92. Educational Advancement. 

Newark's remarkable advancement in matters 
educational in the quarter of a century ending in 
1 91 6, deserves far more attention than is possible 
to devote to it here. It has over sixty public schools 
with some seventy thousand pupils, and parochial 
and other private schools with an estimated enroll- 
ment of 12,000. Its summer schools, which were 
the first to be established in any public school system 
in the country, long ago ceased to be little more than 
nurseries for young children, and now are properly 
graded with the work co-ordinated with that of 
the regular school year. Hundreds of children who 
close the school year failing of promotion now make 
up their deficiencies during the summer term, while 
other hundreds attain to a higher grade than that 
to which they were promoted. Newark's all-year 
schools, of wdiich there are now three, make it possi- 
ble for bright pupils to shorten the prescribed course 
in school bv from one to three vears. These schools 



THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 147 

were the first of their kind to be estabhshed in the 
United States. 

This city's two alternate-class schools (an adapta- 
tion of the Gary system contrived by the present 
city superintendent, Dr. A. B. Poland), which were 
created during the last few months of 191 5, give 
every promise of becoming a powerful factor in 
school economy and in the enrichment of the school 
curricula. The rapid growth of the industrial and 
vocational trend is very apparent. The work of the 
classes for the foreign-born in the city's night 
schools is making for better citizenship. In fact, 
the evening schools, both elementary and secondary, 
are extending opportunities to thousands to fill up 
educational gaps caused by too early retirement 
from the day schools. Newark now has four high 
schools, with the immediate prospect of a fifth. It 
will shortly have a large boys' industrial school, and 
its recently established industrial school for girls 
has demonstrated its value in less than two years. 

The demand for a Newark university, a sort of 
city college which shall extend the opportunities of 
higher education to young men and women of the 
neighborhood who can not afford to attend colleges 
and universities at a distance, is rapidly growing 
more insistent. There is every prospect as this vol- 



148 A SHORT HISTOnv OF NEWARK. 



lime goes to press that the beginnings of a university 
(through the co-operation of New York University 
with the Newark Institute of Arts and Sciences), 
will be made in the fall of this, the city's anniver- 
sary year. 

93. Approach of the "City Beautiful." 

Many new influences working for the upbuilding 
of the Greater Newark, and for a genuine ''City 
Beautiful," for a community far pleasanter to live 
in than ever before, are now apparent. Among 
these refining influences the Newark Free Public 
Library is to be reckoned as one of the most potent 
and far-reaching. Latterly the Newark Museum 
Association has become a potent force for improve- 
ment. The public school buildings erected du'ring 
the last decade are infinitely more attractive, within 
and without, and vastly more comfortable and safe 
and sanitary than their predecessors. 

The other public and semi-public edifices are 
modern, of graceful lines and, in not a few instan- 
ces, architectural monuments. The city now has 
several works of art that are widely admired, and it 
may be confidently stated that the city's store of art 
treasures will be materially increased before the 
present year is over. The latest expression of this 



THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 149 

sort is the promise of a gift to the city by Christian 
W. Feigenspan, of a full size copy in bronze of the 
noble equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni, set 
up in Venice in the fifteenth century and since then 
reckoned as one of the best (if not the best) eques- 
trian statues in the world. The Newark copy will 
be the only one in metal in America. The repro- 
duction of both statue and base is the work of J. 
Massey Rhind, of New York. The most striking 
original work of sculpture which Newark possesses, 
so far, is the statue of Lincoln, in front of the Essex 
County Court House, done by Gutzon Borglum. 
^Ir. Rhind's statue of Washington, in Washington 
Park, is also greatly admired. These two objects 
of art were provided for by a loyal Newarker, the 
late Amos H. \^n Horn. Erelong a third gift to 
the city from this public spirited citizen's estate will 
be erected, a monument to the soldiers and sailors 
of New Jersey, far more ambitious and costly than 
either of the others. 

94. Mayors Since Civil War Times. 

Newark has had fourteen mayors (including the 
present incumbent, Thomas L. Raymond), since 
1857, when Moses Bigelow, the 'Svar mayor" began 
his first term. It was in his time that the term of 



ISO A SH ORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

mayor was changed from one year to two. Mayor 
Bigelow was one of the city's ablest and most 
forceful chief magistrate. Although a Democrat, 
he was a staunch defender of the Union in those 
trying times. He was succeeded in 1864 by Theo- 
dore R. Runyon, afterwards Ambassador from the 
United State.s to Germany. He had served at the 
opening of the Rebellion as brigadier general in 
command of the First New Jersey Brigade. 
Thomas B. Peddie, a prosperous manufacturer, suc- 
ceeded General Runyon, and in turn gave way to 
Frederick W. Ricord, who served faithfully until 
1874, Nehemiah Perry, at one time in the House of 
Representatives, taking his place. In 1876 Henry 
J. Yates took up the office, and then came William 
H. F. Fiedler, in 1880. Mr. Fiedler represented the 
growing liberal movement which had been waging 
a vigorous campaign for years against what its advo- 
cates believed to be narrow and intolerant — not to 
say Puritanical — methods of government, particu- 
larly with regard to Sunday observance. Later Mr. 
Fiedler was sent to Congress and after that was ap- 
pointed Postmaster of Newark. 

It was said, in 1878, that more than forty of the 
families of the founders were still represented in 
Newark or in neijjhborins: communities, and that 



THE STORY OF ITS PROSPERITY. 151 

the descendants of the settlers still exercised a con- 
trolling* influence over the "general habits, customs, 
character and government of the community, even 
though it now includes in its population of 120,000 
about 70,000 inhabitants either born in foreign lands 
or of foreign parentage. The remainder of the 
population includes thousands of inhabitants who 
came hither from other states, so that of those 
whose forefathers founded Newark the number here 
is comparatively small, probably not more than 
from eight to ten thousand." 

The trend toward a cosmopolitan population 
began to show itself more pronouncedly than ever 
soon after the close of the Civil War. Then a few 
Italians came and took up with the laboring work 
which had previously been done largely by the Irish 
and Germans. 

95. A Cosmopolitan Population. 

The federal census of 19 10 gave us a graphic 
glimpse of how swiftly the old time racial condi- 
tions in Newark are changing. During the decade, 
1 900- 19 10 the proportion of white foreign-born or 
of foreign parentage increased from 68.1 per cent, to 
an even 70 per cent., meaning that of Newark's 
then 347,469 inhabitants in 1910, no less than 243.- 



152 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

ooo were either foreig-n-born or of foreign parent- 
age. During that same decade the German and 
Irish foreign-born or of foreign parentage decreased 
— the Germans from 25,139 to 22,177; the Irish 
from 12,742 to 11,225. On the other hand, the 
ItaHans increased from 8,537 to 20,493 5 ^^^^ the 
Russians from 5,511 to 21,912. The number of 
Greeks, as well as Lithuanians, Ruthenians, Poles, 
Bohemians and many other European people has 
mounted up very rapidly in the last ten years. 

96. Mayor Haynes and the Water Supply. 

Henry Lang succeeded Mayor Fiedler, in 1882 
and in 1884 gave up the ofifice to Joseph E. Haynes, 
who had for many years served as the principal of 
Morton Street School. He served for ten years and 
in the last years of his life was Postmaster of the 
city. The city's latter-day prosperity really began 
in Mayor Haynes' regime. Llis greatest achieve- 
ment was the establishment of the city's great water 
supply system, for which he worked with tireless 
energy and far-seeing persistence. 

It was during the administration of Julius A. 
Lebkuecher, who succeeded Mayor Haynes, that 
more attention began to be paid to the city's physi- 
cal appearance. He was an enthusiast for city and 



THE SrORY OF ITS I'kOSt'LLRlTY. 153 

county parks, while at the same time l)eing- an ar- 
dent advocate for the introduction of business meth- 
ods into the conduct of civic affairs. 

97. The Spanish-American War. 

Mayor James M. Seymour (1896- 1903), was a 
pioneer in the movement for the abohshment of 
steam raih'oad grade crossings and a vigorous pro- 
moter of the ^'Greater Newark" idea. It was dur- 
ing his regime that the Spanish-American War 
(1898) came. Newark responded to the call to 
arms with alacrity. The First Regiment, New Jer- 
sey National, recruited almost entirely in this city, 
volunteered in a body. It left the city for its first 
camp, at Sea Girt, on May 2, and on May 21 took 
up its station at Camp Alger, Va. At one time it 
was almost on the point of moving south in order 
to take transport for Cuba, when the disappointing 
news came that the Seventy-first New York regi- 
ment had been chosen in its stead. Five members of 
the First New Jersey died of disease while in service. 
The regiment returned to New^ark on September 26, 
1898. 

. The Second Division, New Jersey Naval Reserves, 
First Battalion, nearly all of whose members were 
Newarkers, served on the auxiliary cruiser Badger, 



154 ^1 SHORT HISTORY OP NEWARK. 

from May 21 to October 6, 1898, when the Badger s 
crew was honorably discharged at Philadelphia, on 
October 6, 1898. It lost one man, who fell from the 
masthead to the deck, dying shortly after. The 
Badger captured three prize vessels, two of them 
carrying nearly five hundred Spanish soldiers. One 
ensign of the Newark division and five men, were 
detailed to the Resolute, which at one time acted as 
a despatch boat. It carried the news to Admiral 
Sampson that Admiral Cervera and his fleet were 
coming out of Santiago harbor. 

Several Newarkers served in the regular army 
and navy during the Spanish-American War and a 
number subsequently enlisted for service in the 
Philippines. One of the very first American soldiers 
to fall in the Filipino insurrection, in 1899, was 
Ralph Wilson Simonds, a graduate of Barringer 
High School and for a time a student at Princeton. 

98. Band Concerts — Playgrounds — Meadow 
Reclamation. 

Henry M. Doremus (1903-1907) succeeded 
Mayor Seymour. The present City Hall was begun 
in Mayor Seymour's day and finished in that of 
Mayor Doremus. He was responsible for a number 
of important innovations, including free band con- 



THE STORY Of JTS PROSPERITY. 155 

certs and free excursions for poor children. Out of 
the last mentioned grew, indirectly, the city play- 
ground system, of which William J. McKiernan is 
truthfully regarded as the ''father.'' Mayor Dore- 
mus worked for the removal of poles and overhead 
wires from the city streets. He kept up the crusade 
begun by Mayor Seymour for the abolishment of 
grade crossings. He w^as instrumental in having 
a civil ser\'ice system introduced in the police and 
fire departments. Jacob Haussling (1907-1915) 
succeeded Mayor Doremus. It was in this period 
that the Newark meadows development and the dock 
and ship canal enterprises were pushed rapidly for- 
ward. 

99. 1916 Celebration Preparations. 

It was in his administration also that the prepara- 
tions for the celebration of Newark's two hundred 
and fiftieth anniversary were begun and carried 
forward. He appointed the Committee of one Hun- 
dred, which had charge of the festival. His suc- 
cessor, the present incumbent, was elected in 1915. 

Newark has borne its full share of the present 
war shock and the financial and industrial de- 
pression, and would seem to be coming steadily 
out from beneath these handicaps to its remarkable 



156 A SHORT HISTORY OT NEWARK. 

progress cincl increase in prosperity. In the fall of 
191 5 better times began to dawn, and there has been 
unmistakable improvement ever since. 

The city faces many problems of considerable 
magnitude with a greater and prosperous future 
assured, nevertheless. Among the leading features 
or questions before the municipality, are : The 
Americanization of the large throngs of immigrants, 
the further advancement of meadows reclamation, 
the deepening of the Passaic River channel, the com- 
pletion of the Passaic Valley trunk sewer, the further 
relief of traffic congestion, the construction of sub- 
ways, the widening of some of the more important 
thoroughfares in the city's centre, the abandonment 
of the Morris Canal within the city limits, at least, 
and the establishment of a high speed railroad line 
in its bed, the enlargement of the Newark watershed 
area, the adoption of a new city charter, the system- 
atic development of city planning, and the advance- 
ment of the Greater Newark plan so as to embrace 
more and more of Essex County and possibly of 
West Hudson. 

100. Newark, Mother of Towns. 

Newark is essentially ''Mother of Towns." The 
founders soon acquired practically all of what is 



THE STORY OP ITS PROSTERITY. I57 



now Essex County. Newark's people grcidually 
worked their way out from the parent village and 
established one new community after another, occa- 
sionally with the help of the people of Elizabethtown. 
Now all of Essex County is being covered with 
buildings. The various municipal boundaries are 
artificial; physically, Essex is becoming one great 
community. With the passing of the two hundred 
and fiftieth year, Newark enters upon a new order of 
existence. Never since the earliest days has there 
been so potent a community spirit afoot. It is the 
duty of every good citizen to assist in fostering this. 
With entire unity of effort for the common good, 
no man can attempt to forecast to what heights of 
greatness, dignity and power, this city and county 
mav attain in the next quarter of a century. 



HISTORIC SPOTS 
IN NEWARK 



HISTORIC SPOTS IN NEWARK 

Academy. Newark; Sites of. First building 
erected prior to 1775, at the southern end of 
Washington Park, nearly opposite the end of Halsey 
street. Destroyed by the British soldiers on the 
night of January 25, 1780. Never rebuilt. Next 
Academy building erected on the north corner of 
Broad and Academy streets, in 1792. Property 
sold to the United States Government in 1855 for 
Post Office. Property at corner of High and 
William streets purchased for Academy purposes 
in 1857. 

Ailing house; Site of. Residence of David 
Ailing built by him about 1790, on Broad street 
opposite William, on the site of the present Kremlin 
building. Talleyrand lived there for a time, about 
1795. There is a tradition that Chateaubriand 
worked upon his ''Genius of Christianity" while 

there. 

Bank, first in Newark ; Site of. National Newark 
Banking Company, one of the two pioneer banking 
institutions in the State, chartered in 1804, located 
on the north corner of Bank and Broad streets a 
year later. 



i62 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

Boudinot house. On Park place about a 
hundred yards south of East Park street. The 
building was torn down to make room for the Public 
Service Terminal Building. Lafayette was enter- 
tained there in September, 1824, a room having been 
especially furnished for his entertainment, although 
he remained here but a few hours, coming from 
Jersey City and passing the night in Elizabeth. 
Immediately west of the Boudinot house, in Military 
Park, a pavilion had been erected where Lafayette 
received the people, who had come from all parts of 
the State to do him honor. 

Boyden, Seth ; He discovered the process by which 
malleable iron is made, on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth 
anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of 
Lidependence, in his foundry on the east side of 
Broad street a few doors north of Bridge street. He 
made the first patent leather in America in a shop on 
the north side of Bridge street. In his shop at High 
and Orange streets he made several locomotives. 

Bridge, first across Passaic in Newark; Site of. 
It stood about where the present Bridge street bridge 
now is. It was finished early in 1795. 

Camp homestead; Site of. Residence of Capt. 
Nathaniel Camp before and during War for Inde- 
pendence. Stood at the corner of Broad and Camp 



HISTORIC SPOTS. 163 



streets. Washington was entertained there several 
times when he visited Newark during the encamp- 
ments at Morristown. 

''Cedars," The; Site of. The hermit-hke home of 
Henrv Wilham Herbert, an author. His home was 
located in the woods on the bank of the Passaic, 
close Xo what is still called the Gully Road, and 
within the confines of what is now known as Mt. 
Pleasant Cemetery. Herbert was known in litera- 
ture as "Frank Forester," and was the first writer 
of importance in this country on sports and out-door 
subjects. He also wrote on French and English 
history and made some excellent translations from 
the works of the elder Dumas and Eugene Sue. He 
died in 1858. His grave is in Mt. Pleasant 
Cemetery. 

Centre street; Foot of. Here, on the river front, 
was located one of the two hospitals for soldiers 
during the Civil War. There was another soldiers' 
hospital farther down the river bank, not far from 
the Market street bridge. The first railroad running 
from Newark to Jersey City crossed the Passaic 
river at Centre street. 

City Hotel ; Site of. Structure occupied for many 
years as the City Hall, on the north corner of Broad 
and William streets, was previously the City, or 



i64 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

Thompson's Hotel. Once you could take a rail- 
road train from its doors, and ride up Broad, down 
Market around to Centre street, and thus on to 
Jersey City. 

Cockloft Hall. On the northeast corner of 
Gouverneur street and Mt. Pleasant avenue. Part 
of the structure was standing during the War for 
Independence. Quite early in the last century the 
house then owned by Gouverneur Kemble, was a 
frecjuent rendezvous of the famous American author, 
Washington Irving, and John Paulding and other 
young literary men of New York, who came ''out 
to the country" to find quiet and change, and found 
them there. 

College of New Jersey, now Princeton, founded 
in Elizabethtown in 1757 and removed to Newark 
the same year. It is believed that most of the college 
exercises were held in the Second Church building, 
and which stood on the eastern edge of the Old 
Burying Ground, perhaps a little north of Branford 
place. The first commencement of this college was 
held here. Some of the classes gathered in the 
Parsonage of Dr. Aaron Burr, the second president, 
on the south side of William and Broad streets. 

Court House and Jail ; Site of. The first jail 
stood on Broad street on the eastern edge of the Old 



HISTORIC SPOTS. 165 

Burying Ciround not far from the tirst Court House, 
which was a httle south of Branford place. This 
was the building in which the patriots of Essex 
County met in 1774 to protest against the King's 
tyranny and to call on Governor Franklin to select 
delegates to the first Continental Congress, that was 
soon to meet. In 1810 a new Court House and Jail, 
a three-story stone structure with cells in the cellar, 
was built at the corner of Walnut and Broad streets, 
where Grace Episcopal Church now stands. It was 
burned down in 1835. 

Divident Hill ; In Weequahic Park. Here the set- 
tlers of Elizabethtown and of Newark, on May 20, 
1668, assembled and solemnly fixed upon the hill as 
the point from which to run the dividing line be- 
tween the two communities. Bound Creek (called 
by the Indians Weequahic and now preserved in 
Weequahic Lake), was the boundary between the 
territory of the Hackensack and Raritan Indians. 

Early settlers; Monument to. In Fairmount 
Cemetery. Beneath it the bones of many of the first 
settlers, which were removed from the Old Burying 
Ground in the late eighties of the last century, now 
rest. Ever since, more bones of the town's fore- 
fathers are occasionally uncovered during excavation 
for cellars and foundations of new buildings. 



i66 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

First Church ; Site of. Original meeting house 
of settlers stood on eastern edge of Old Burying 
Ground fronting on what is now Broad street, a 
little south of Branford place. Its present successor, 
the First Presbyterian Church, was begun in 1787 
and finished in 179 1. 

"Four Corners." The founders started their village 
at the point where Market and Broad streets now 
cross. The settlers came from four towns in 
Connecticut and those from each town took a 
corner from which to start laying out their home 
lots. 

Frog pond; Site of. A small body of water 
located at the southwest corner of Market and Broad 
streets, when the settlers came. It was not entirely 
obliterated for upwards of a century. 

House of Prayer; Broad and State streets. 
Here the Rev. Hannibal Goodwin invented the 
])hotographic film. 

Iron foundry; Site of. First iron foundry in 
Newark was on the site of the Second Presbyterian 
Church, on the north corner of James and Washing- 
ton streets. 

Kearny homestead. House where Major-General 
Philip Kearny spent most of his babyhood and 
early years. Stood on east side of Belleville avenue, 



HISTORIC SPOTS. 167 

Opposite Kearny street, where the State Normal 
School now is. When young Kearny lived in the 
homestead early in the last century the estate extend- 
ed all the way to the river and for a considerable dis- 
tance up and down the banks. 

Library Hall ; Site of. Stood on north side of 
Market street about a hundred yards west of Broad 
street. Many prominent actors, musicians and lec- 
turers appeared there during" the sixties, seventies 
and early eighties of the last century. 

Machinery Hall. On corner of Marshall and 
Washington streets. Was built for Newark's great 
industrial exhibition which was held in 1872. 
General Grant and Horace Greely attended it. 

Market place; Site of. What is now Washington 
Park was set aside as a market ])lace by the settlers 
soon after they came. 

Market street. That part of it which lies between 
the Court House and the Pennsylvania railroad was 
probably an Indian footpath, following quite 
closely a bank of the stream that ran down the hill- 
side into the marshes. 

Mill, first grist; Site of. It stood on the l)ank of 
a stream, known as "Mill Brook," near the north 
corner of High and Clay streets. 

Militarv I Tall. .\t 100. 201 Market street, three 



i68 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

Upper floors. Here recruits were sometimes drilled 
during the Civil War, and according to one 
tradition, during the Mexican War also. 

Old Burying Ground; Site of. Was located 
immediately back of the first church, extended west- 
ward toward what is now Halsey street, nearly to 
what is now William street on the south, and to the 
ponds which were close to Market street on the north. 
Other historic burying grounds are that of the 
present First Presbyterian Church, situated at the 
south side and on the rear; and that of Trinity 
Church in Rector street. 

Park House; Site of. On the east side of Park 
place opposite southern end of Military Park. Many 
eminent persons stopped there during the last 
century. Henry Clay made an address from the 
steps, November 20, 1833. 

Parsonage; Site of. Home of several ministers 
of the First Church in the eighteenth century. 
Located at corner of Broad and William streets, a 
little south of William street and setting back 
perhaps fifty feet from Broad. Aaron Burr, third 
vice-president of the United States, and son of the 
Rev. Aaron Burr, second president of the College of 
New Jersey, was born there in 1756. During War 
for Independence guards were sometimes posted near 



HISTORIC SPOTS. 169 



tlie door to warn the pastor, Rev. Dr. Macwhorter, 
of approach of British who sought to capture him. 

Quarries; Site of. The stone quarries of Newark 
which were worked for nearly, if not quite, two 
hundred years, were principally located along and 
near the hne of Clifton avenue, from the north side 
of Bloomfield avenue nearly to Orange street. There 
was a very ancient quarry on the north side of 
Bloomfield avenue a little west of Belleville avenue. 
School first town (pay) ; Site of. Stood on the 
south side of T^Iarket street, about fifty yards east 
of Halsey street. 

School, first free school for apprentices, and one 
of the first attempts in the entire country to establish 
what are now known as trade schools, was started 
by Moses Combs, shoe manufacturer, on Market 
street, south side, near Plane street. 

Stone bridge. Bridge over ''Mill Brook," a little 
south of where Broad street and Belleville avenue 

join. 

Tablet, laid on July 4, 1826, in commemoration 
of the signing of the Declaration of Independence 
at lower end of Military Park. Recently restored 
and now protected with a railing. It was proposed 
at the time of its dedication to raise a monument on 
this stone, to be called the ''Semi-Centennial Monu- 



I70 A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 

inent." It would have cost a large sum of mouey 
had it been erected as planned. No funds were ever 
raised. 

Tannery ; Site of first. On the south side of 
Market street, a hundred yards or so below what is 
now the Court House plaza. The water used there 
came from the stream that fed the Watering Place. 

Tavern, Rising Sun; Site of. On bluff over- 
looking river, near where Public Service Corpora- 
tion power house now stands, a little above Market 
street bridge. St. John's Lodge of Free Masons 
held some of its meetings there as early as 1761. 

Town pump ; Site of. Stood for over a century 
and a half in the centre of the open space at the four 
corners of Market and Broad streets. 

Training ground; Site of. Military Park was set 
aside by the settlers as a training ground for all the 
able-bodied men of the town, w^io on appointed days 
assembled there to go through military drills, to 
have their weapons inspected, and to improve their 
marksmanship, so as to be prepared for any attack 
of the Indians. For the first few years the first 
training place was in the Old Burying Ground plot. 

Trinity Church. The second church congrega- 
tion to be established in Newark. Present edifice 
stands on site of original building erected in 1743- 



HISTORIC SPOTS. 171 



44. In the first building' many of the patriots 
wounded in the battle of Long Island in 1776, were 
cared for, the edifice being converted into a hospital. 
The picture illustrating this episode, given in this 
book, shows the original church as it is depicted in 
an old drawing. Washington, Lord Stirling and 
other patriot leaders attended service in the original 
edifice, and the base of the present church spire is 
part of the first structure. The corner stone for 
the present church was laid in May, 1809. 

Watering place; Site of. The founders set aside 
a small plot of land at the point where Springfield 
avenue and Market street now come together, as a 
place to water cattle and horses. 



INDEX 



Academy founded, xx, xxi 



burned. 



62, 7 = 



mon council meeting in, 
xxvii; used as barracks, 
64; rebuilt. 76; sites. ... 161 

Adams, President John, in 

Newark ^-^•i 

Ailing house site 161 

All-year schools 146 

Alternate-class schools i47 

Alms House erected, xxviii; 

new, at South Orange... xxxiv 

Ambulance, first automobile xxxiii 

American Insurance Co. in- 
corporated ;•••.• ^^"Vi 

Americanization of immi- 
grants, problem of the fu- 
ture ; • • ■ 156 

Anderson, jSIajor, in New- 
ark ,•• • 1-6 

Andros, governor of New 

York >^i-^ 

Antietam, Newark regiment 

at 129 

Aqueduct Board, see New- 
ark Aqueduct Board. 

Aqueduct Company, con- 
tract with 

Aqueducts 

Arc lamps xxn 

Architecture of buildings, 
improvement in 

Arion Singing Society or- 
ganized ^^-"^ 

Art works in Newark 148 

Badger, cruiser i53- i54 

Band concerts started i 54 

Band of music, first xxii 

Bank, first, xxiii; site..... 161 
Baptist Church, see First 

Baptist Church. 

Bath house, first recorded. xxv 

Bayonne farms 6 

Beer brewing 93 

Belleville punqjing station. 134 
Belleville Township created xxxv 
Berckel, Peter van, in New- 
ark 96 

Bergen, first Dutch church 

at 29 

Bergen Point, Dutch vil- 
lage 6 

Bi-Centennial celebration 

1866 -^>^-^< 

Bigelow, Moses, war mayor 149 

Bill of sale by Indians 19 



xxvin 
xxxii 

i, 138 

148 



i6j 
165 



illennerhassett in -Xewark. 96 

Cloomfield T o w n s h i i) 

created -^-^•'^v 

Board of Education estab- 
lished, 116; small board, xxxiii 
Board of Trade, sec New- 
ark Board of Trade. 
Boat manufacture. 86; see 

also Shoes. 
Uoudinot, Elislia, house, 96; 

site 

Bound Creek 

Boundaries between Eliza- 

bethtown and Newark... xvii 
Boyden, Seth. inventor, 91- 
93; illustration, 70; first 
patent leather, xxiv; proc- 
ess for malleable iron, 
xxv; sites of shops, 162; 

statue unveiled xxxii, 90 

Boyden Monument Associa- 
tion organized xxxu 

Boys' Lodging House and 
Children's Aid Society 

organized xxxi 

Brainerd, David, missionary 

to Indians 

Branford, Conn., settlers 

from 10: 

Breweries 

Bridge, first across Passaic, 

site ■ 

Bridge Street, 3^; north 

boundary • 

Bridges, first, over Passaic 

and Hackensack xxi 

British outrages denounced, 
xxiii; soldiers in Newark 
Broad and Market Streets 
in 1800, 76; northwest 
corner in civil war times, 
illustration, 125; see also 
Four Corners. 
Broad Street laid out. 38; 
in 1800, 80; south from 
Market Street 1825, illus- 
tration 

Brooks and streams 20 

Brownstone quarries 

Buildings numbered 

Burlington, N. J., site ex- 
amined by early settlers. 
Burnet, Dr. William, hospi- 
tal system 

•'Burning Day," 32; illustra- 
tion 



50 



162 



84 



89 
xxvi 



68 



174 



A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 



Uurr, Rev. Aaron, portrait, 
49; parsonage, 80; Presi- 
dent of College of New 
Jersey xx 

Burr, Col. Aaron, son of 
Rev. Aaron Burr, 

50, 80, 96, 168, XX 

Burying Ground, see Old 
Burying Ground. 

Burying grounds, historic, 
168; see also Mt. Pleas- 
ant Cemetery, Fairmount 
Cemetery. 

Business, 

38, 39, 85-95, 126-127, 140. 143 

Business census 1804 xxiii 

Caldwell Township created xxxv 
Camp, Nathaniel, h o ni c - 

stead, 162; site 162 

Camp Frelinghuysen, ij8; 

tablet 128 

Camps in Newark in Revo- 
lution . ._ 67 

Canals, see Morris Canal, 

Ship Canal. 
Candles used for lighting.. 136 
Carteret, Philip, governor, 

xviii, 3, 15, 16 
Catlin, John, first school 

master xviii, 40 

"Cedars," the, site 163 

Central Labor Union 142 

Centre Street, foot of, civil 

war hospital 163 

Chandler's hotel 105 

Charter granted, xxx ; 

adopted, 103; new city 

charter problem of future 156 
Charter Oak story. Gov. 

treat and 46, 47 

Chateaubriand in Newark.. 161 
Children in early Newark.. 40 

Cholera xxix 

Chronology xvii 

Church going, illustration. 27 

Church, second established. xix 
Churches, xxvi, 26, 28, 29. 

52, 75, 80, 87; see cilso 

names of churches. 

Cider making . xix, 43 

City Hall cornerstone laid, 

xxvii; dedicated, x.wiii; 

at Broad and William 

Streets, xxxi; present. 

opening xxxiii, 154 

City Hospital, new building 

completed, xxxiii; Nurses' 

home erected xxxiv 

City Hotel. 105; site 163 



City Plan Commission, 144; 

appointed xxxiv 

City plan develoi)ment, prob- 
lem of future 156 

Civil service adopted, xxxiii, 

155; by school district... xxxiv 

Civil war, Newark in the, 

xx.x, 1 21-132 

Clay, Henry, in Newark.. 96, 168 

Clinton, Gen., aiid battle of 

Second River 59-62 

Clinton Township created, 
xxxv ; annexed, xxxvi ; 
boundary line changed, 

xxxv, xxxyi 

Clothes, making in early 

days 37 

Coach making 93 

Coach-lace making 93 

Cockloft Hall, 1 18-120; site. 164 

"Cocklofts," the 120 

College of New Jersey in 
Newark, xx, 48, 164; rea- 
sons for fotmding, 50; 
moved to Princeton 51 

Colleoni equestrian statue, 
gift of Christian W. ]'\'i- 
genspan 149 

Combs, INIoses, first free 
school, xxi, 86, 169; first 
shoemaker, 86; tablet, 86; 
freed slave 87 

Committee of 100, 250th 
anniversary celebration, 

xxxiv, 155 

Common Council in Acad- 
emy, xxvii; in Library 
building xxviii 

Congregation B'Nai Jes- 

hurun established xxix 

Connecticut charter 46 

Constables 104 

C'ontinental Congress, dele- 
gates to first, chosen.... 55 

Continental line troops in 

Newark 67 

Cordwainers' As.sociation. . . 142 

Cosmopolitan character of 
population 151 

County park system, see 
Parks. 

Court House, first, built, 
xxiv; corner stone laid, 
xxvii; dedicated, xxviii; 
used as hospital, 68; site, 
164; war meeting at site 
of present, 124; present 
completed xxxiii 

Courts xvii, xviii 



IXDEX. 



175 



Crane. Azariah first tanner. 

>^ix. 37 

iC'rane. Jasper ^7 

Curtiss, John xix 

/^//7v Adi'crtiscr establislietl xxv 
Declaration of Independ- 
ence, early celebration, 
xxi; fiftieth anniversary, 

xxv, 92 
Delaware River settlements 3 

Dental clinics established., xxxiii 
Dickinson, Rev. Jonathan, 

head of College of N. J. . . 48 

Dispensary, city, in Centre 

Market xxxi 

Divident Hill, xvii; location 165 

Docks on meadows 145 

Doremus, Henry M., mayor 154 
Drawing school established xxxii 
Dutch Reformed Church, 

first, established xxvi 

Dutch rule ended 9 

Dutch settlement at Man- 
hattan 6 

Dutch West India Com- 
pany 8 

Dwellings, number in 1777 

and 1832, 94; in 1845... iii 
Dye making ^7 

Early settlers monument, 

see Puritan monument. 

East Back Street 81 

East New Jersey Lords 

Proprietors, grant by. . . . xix 
East Orange T o w n s h i p 

created xxxv 

ICast Ward 103 

"Edge Pillocks," name of 

Indian reservation 26 

Edison, Thomas A., in 

Newark 137 

Education, sec Board of- 

Education, Schools, John 

Catlin, Moses Combs. 
Electric Lamp manufacture 138 

Electric lighting 138 

Electric street cars xxxii 

Electricity experiments of 

Boyden 92 

Elizabethtown 3, 9, 15 

I'.ilsworth, Colonel, in New- 
ark 1J2 

l^nglish adventurers in 

New Jersey \ 2 

iOnglish take Manhattan... 9 

Essex County, 19; as 

"Greater Newark" 157 



Essex County Hospital or- 
ganized xxxi 

Essex County Park system 
established, xxxii, 146; 
see also Parks. 
Evelyn, letter about New- 
Jersey ij 

E'ceiiing Nezi'S established, xxxii 
Evening schools established xxix 
Exports, early mention... xxvi 
Eye and Ear Infirmary in- 
corporated xxxii 

Factories, number in 1836. 107 

Fairmount Cemetery incor- 
porated, xxix; bones re- 
moved to, from OUl Bury- 
ing Ground, xxxii, zi\ 
Puritan monument },i 

!• a i r m o u n t Township 

created xxxv 

Farm in Mulberry Street 

in 1815 8j 

Feigenspan, Christian W., 
gift of Colleoni equestrian 
statue 149 

Female Charitable Aid So- 
ciety organized xxiii 

Inedler, William II. F., 

mayor 160 

Fire department established, 

114; in 1837 xxvii 

Fire engines, steam, intro- 
duced, XXX ; automobile, 
first, xxxiii 

I'ire fighting in early days, 

1 1 1 , 1 1 J 

Fire tower used xxx 

I-^iremen's Insurance Co., 
incori)orated, xxix; new 
building completed xxxiv 

Fires, disastrous, .xxxiv, 113, 114 

First Baptist Church estab- 
lished xxiii 

First church, see First Pres- 
bysterian Church. 

First Dutch Reformed 

Church established xxvi 

First Presbyterian Church, 
xxi, 29; joint meetings in, 
xxiv; fortified, 26; as 
meeting house, 30; orig- 
inally Congregational, 48; 
liospital in Revolution, 68; 
to present location, 80; 
parsonage, 80; site 166 

First regiment in Spanish- 
American war 153 

I'lour mills 90 



176 



A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 



Forrester, Frank, see Her- 
bert, Henry William. 

Founders of Newark 3 

Foundries 91 

"Four Corners," 103 ; 
skirmish at, 65; illustra- 
tion, 66; center of city.. 166 

"Four Texts" 22 

Franklin, Governor, protest 

against 55 

Franklin Township created xxxvi 
Free Public Library incor- 
porated, xxxii, 117; in- 
fluence of 148 

Frelinghuysen, Camp, 128; 

tablet erected 128 

Frelinghuysen, Theodore, 

Captain of volunteers. . . xxiv 

I'Vog pond, site 166 

Future problems of the city 156 

G. A. R. Post No. I organ- 
ized xxxi 

Gas light, first 136 

General Assembly, first.... xvii 
German Hospital incorpo- 
rated xxxi 

German life in Newark.... 109 
German settlers, early, 108- 

iio; political refugees... xxix 
German Presbyterian 

Church, first xxvii 

Gifford, Archer, tavern. 76, yy, 79 
Goodwin, Rev. Flannibal, in- 
ventor of photographic 
film, 139, 166; tablet in 

Public Library 139 

Gouverneur Street 118 

Grade crossing abolishment, 

i53> 155 
Grant, Gen. U. S., in New- 
ark xxxii, 96, 140 

Great Notch, Montclair, 

reservoir 134 

"Greater Newark" idea.. 153, 157 
Greeley, Horace, in Newark 140 
Green Street German-Amer- 
ican School xxix 

Grist Mill, first xvii 

Guilford, Conn., home of 

early settlers 10 

Gully road 120 

Hackensack farms, 6; In- 
dians, 25, 26; M!eadows.. 22 

Hackensack River, bridge 

over yy 

llalsey, William, first 

mayor, 103; portrait.... 102 



Hamilton, Alexander, xxi; 

interest in water supply.. 135 

Hand engines 112 

Hanging, first recorded.... xxi 

Hard times of 1837 no 

Hat making xxiii, 93 

Hatters' Union 142 

Haussling, Jacob, mayor. . . 155 

Haynes, Joseph E., mayor. 152 
Health Board, new building 

erected xxxiv 

Hebrew Aid Society organ- 
ized XXX 

Hebrew Orphan Asylum 

o]iened xxxii 

Hedden, Justice Joseph, 

xxi; martyrdom of, 64; 

illustration 63 

Herbert, Henry William, 

home of 120, 163 

Hessians in the Revolution 64 

High School, first. ... .xxviii, 116 
High Street and westward 

in 1800 81 

Hill section in 1800 81 

Hinsdale, Epaphras xxiii 

Historic spots in Newark. 161, 171 

Hoboken farms 6 

Holland, oath of allegiance 

to xviii 

Holland, John P., inventor 

of submarine 139 

Home for the Friendless or- 
ganized xxxi 

Home lots, early map, 18; 

site of . 166 

Homeopathic Medical LInion 

organized xxxii 

Horse cars 132, 143 

Hospital, factory used as.. 130 
Hospitals in Revolution, 67; 

sites 163 

Hospitals, sec Names. 

Hotels, early xxvi, xvii 

House of Prayer, location. 166 
Houses, early, how built... 36 

Hudson, Henry, exploring 

Newark Bay, illustration. 4 

Hudson River settlements.. 3 

"Hunters and the Hounds," 

tavern yy 

Incandescent lamps 137 

Incorporation 1836 ....... xxvi 

Independence 1> a y , first 
celebration in Newark, 

yi ; in 1826 92 

Indian Ann, last of the 

Lenni Lenape -(^ 



INDEX. 



177 



Indian reservation in Burl- 
ington County 26 

Indian trails and paths.... 5, 42 

Indian wars in Connecticut, 

Robert Treat and 44, 45 

Indians, 3, 6, 16, 25; early 
trouble with, xviii; pay- 
ment made to, 17; at- 
tacks guarded against. 32, 33, 47 

Industrial exhibition, 1872, 

xxxi, 140; 1912, 141; 1914 141 

Industrial parade, early... xxi, yz 

Industries, 71, 72, 85; see 
also Business. 

Irish settlers, early 108, 109 

Iron foundries, 90; site of 

first 166 

Iron, malleable, process 
discovered by Boyden... xxv 

Irving, Washington, at 

"Cockloft Hall" 120, 164 

Jackson, President Andrew, 

in Newark xxvi, 96 

Jail, early location, 80; va- 
rious sites 164, 165 

Jefferson, President Thomas, 

protest sent to xxiii 

Jersey City farms 6 

Jewelry manufacture xxiii, 93 

Jewish Synagogue, first 

established xxix 

Jitney buses 143 

Johnson, Aaron, poor house 

farm xxiv 

Johnson, Thomas, town 

drununer, ;};}; first hotel xvii 
Jones, William, hanging of. xxi 
July Fourth celebration, 

1788, xxi; 1826 xxv, 92 

Kearny Castle 118, 131 

Kearny homestead, 130; 

site, 166; tablet on site.. 131 
Kearny monurnent unveiled xxxii 

Kearny, Cen. Philip 130-132 

Kemble, Gouverneur, home, 

118, 164 

Knights of Labor 142 

Kossuth, Lrfuis, in Newark. 96 

Krueger Home for Aged 

organized xxxii 

Lafayette in Newark 96, 162 

Lang, Henry, mayor 152 

Leather industry, 86, 93, 

135; first patent leather, 

xxiv, 91 
Lebkuecher, Julius A., 

mavor 152 



Lee, Gen. Charles, failure 

to cooperate with Gen, 

W^ashington. 58 

Lenni Lenapc Indians, 25; 

removal to Miciiigan..^. 26 

Libraries, see Free Public 

Library, Newark Library 

Association, New Jersey 

Historical Society. 

Library Hall, site 167 

Lighting, street, 135, 136; 

with oil lamps xxvii 

Lightning cause discovered 

by Boyden 92 

Lincoln, President i\bra- 

ham, in Newark. xxx, 96, 122-124 
Lincoln monument, gift of 

Amos H. Van Llorn.xxxiv, 149 
Lincoln Park, xxiv; south 

boundary of city 75 

Livingston Township created xxxv 

Lombardy Park xxiv 

Lords Proprietors, grant by xix 
"Lower Green," Military 

Park, illustration t 19 

McClellan, Gen. George B., 

in Newark xxxii. 96 

Machinery Hall, location... 167 
McKiernan, William J.. 

and playgrounds 155 

iMacwhorter, Rev. Alexan- 
der, 56, 80; portrait, 57; 

death xxiii 

j\Dagistrates chosen xvii 

Mail coach stopped on Sun- 
day 83 

Malleable iron made by Seth 

Boyden 91, 92 

Manhattan and Hudson 

Tube terminal opened... xxxiv 
Manhattan taken by English 9 

Manufactures in U. S., 

rank of Newark 141 

Market building erected... xxix 
Market place, Washington 

Park, 40; site 167 

Market Street an Indian 
footpath, 167; east from 
IMulberry Street, 1800; il- 

. lustration 74 

Marshes, early, 21; filling 

in, 33; see also Afeadows. 

Mayflower, attempt to reach 

tiie Delaware 10. 11 

Mayors since Civil War... 140 
^leadow reclamation, 2i< 
145. 155; problem of the 
future I s6 



1/8 



A SHORT HISTORY OF NEIVARK. 



Meeting house built, xvii; 
fortified against Indians, 
xviii; first church as.... 30 

Methodist Episcopal 

Church, first xxiii 

Milford, Conn., home of 

early settlers 10 

Military Hall, location 167 

Military officers 24 

Military Park, xix, 75; 
training place, 52, 170; 

early picture 119 

Mill JBrook 21, 90, 167 

Mill, first grist, site 167 

Millburn Township created xxxv 

Mills 90 

Minute-men 64, 65 

Mohican Indians, removal 

to Michigan 26 

Montclair Township created xxxvi 
Morris and Essex Railroad, 

xxvi, 106 
Morris Canal opened, xxvii, 
95; abandonment, prob- 
lem of the future 156 

M'orris Canal Company fur- 
nish water xxxi 

Morristown, Gen. Washing- 
ton at 59 

Mt. Pleasant Cemetery in- 
corporated xxviii 

Mulberry Street, east boun- 
dary, 7s; known as East 
Back Street, 81; in 181 5. 82 
Mvmicipal Bureau of Sta- 
tistical Information estab- 
lished xxxiii 

Municipal Employment Bu- 
reau established xxxiii 

Municipal lighting plant... xxxiii 
Museum, sec Newark Mu- 
seum Association. 

Music band, first xxii 

Mutual Benefit Life Insur- 
ance Co. organized, 
xxviii; new building.... xxxiii 

National Newark Banking 

Co., site of building 161 

Negroes, free and slaves . . xxii 

New Brunswick, convention 

at 75 

New Plaven, Conn., home 

of early settlers 10 

New Jersey, surrender to 
Dutch, xviii; return to 
English xviii 

New Jersey Continental 
Line, second regiment in 
Newark (>7 



N. J. Freie Zeifuiig estab- 
lished XXX 

N. J. Historical Society in- 
corporated xxviii 

N.^ J. Home for Disabled 
Soldiers opened on 
Seventh Avenue, xxxi ; 
Rutherfurd home, Kearny, 
part of present site 131 

N. J. Naval Reserves in 

Si^anish-American war... 153 

N. J. Railroad and Trans- 
portation Co xxvi, 105 

N. J. State "Association 
Baseball Players Organ- 
ized xxxi 

New York, surrender to 

Dutch xviii 

Newark and the Revolu- 
tionary W'ar, 53-68; the 
village in 1800, 73; from 
the Passaic at Night, il- 
lustration, 100; incorpo- 
rated 1836, 103; civil war 
times, 1 2 1- 1 32; the 
"Mother of Towns". .. 156, 157 

Newark Academy, sec 
Academy. 

Newark Aqueduct Board 

created xxx 

Newark Banking and Insur- 
ance Co. established xxiii 

Newark Board of Trade or- 
ganized xxxi, 141 

Newark Catholic Institute 

incorporated xxix 

Newark City Home estab- 
lished xxxi 

Newark City PI o s p i t a 1 

opened xxxii 

Newark-Clinton Plank Road 

Co. incorporated xxix 

Newark District Telegraph 

Co. organized xxxii 

Newark Fire Insurance Co. 

incorporated xxiv 

Newark Gas Light Co xxviii 

Newark Institute of Arts 

and Sciences 148 

Newark Library Association 

chartered xxviii, 117 

Newark Medical Association 

organized . xxvi 

Newark Museum Associa- 
tion incorporated, xxxiii; 
influence of . 148 

Newark Orphan Asyhnn in- 
corporated xxix 

Newark Technical School 

established xxii 



INDJiX. 



179 



Newark Water \V o r k s, 

Belleville, completed . . . xxxi 

Xormal school on site of 

Kearny home 131 

Xorth \Var(l 103 

Xurscs" Home, City IIos])i- 

tal, erected xxxiv 

Officers chosen by town 

meeting 25 

Ogden, Col. Josiah, gathers 

wheat on Sunday 152 

Old Burying Ground, xix. 

32. 52; bones removed. 

xxxii, 33; site 168 

Orange and Newark Horse 

Car Co 132 

Orange Mountains 

Orange Park xxiv 

Orange Township created, 

XXXV, 7-, 

Oraton. Indian chief 26 

Overhead wires, renun'nl of 153 

Park House, site t6S 

i'ark system established. 
xxxii; aqueduct property 
at Branch P.rook, xxxii; 

development 145 

Parks, property vested in 

Newark xxiv 

l*arsonage. First. Church. 

80; site 168 

Passaic River described, 
95, 117, 118; purification 
agitated, xxxiii; channel 
deepening, problem of fu- 
ture, 156; bridge at 

Bridge Street 77 

Passaic Valley settlements. 6 

Passaic X'alley trunk sewer, 

145. 156 

Paterson, location xxi 

Patriots, gathering of, illus- 
tration 54 

Pau, Michael 8 

Paulding, John, at "Cock- 
loft Hall" 120, 164 

Paulus Hook 8 

Peddie, Thomas B., mayor 150 
Pequannock X'alley, source 

of present water supply. 134 

Perro, Indian 17 

Perry, Nehemiah, mayor. . . 160 
Philadelphia an Indian vil- 
lage 9 

Philip, King, war in Connec- 
ticut 44, 45 

Pierson, A b r a h a m, first 

president of Vale College 48 



Pierson, Rev. .\braham, 3. 

24, 48; parsonage 80 

Pierson, Theoi)hilus xix 

Plank road xx, 77 

Plank Road and l-'erry Co. 

es!tablished xxix 

Playgrounds, first city. xxxiii, 155 
Poland, Addison 15., sui)er- 

intendent of schools 147 

Poles, removal of 155 

Police force 104 

Police precinct, sixth, 

opened xxxiv 

Poor, i)rovision for, xix; 

town rate xix 

Poor House Karm xxiv 

Population 1673, xviii; 1682. 
xix; 1780, XX ; 1810, xxiv; 
1820, xxiv; 1826, XXV ; 
1810, 1826, 1830, 1833, 
89; 1835, xxvi; 1836, 
xxvii; 1837, i860, 1 10; 
1864, 1865, iii; 1910, 
151; by races, 152; in- 
crease, 73; growth after 

Civil War 142 

Port Newark Terminal ... 34, 145 
Port of entrv established., xxvi 

i^ost Office 7 5 

Presbyterian Church, .s- c c 
First Presbyterian 
Church, Second Presby- 
terian Church, JMeeting 
House. 

Princeton, battle of 59 

Princeton College in New- 
ark, XX ; see also College 
of New Jersey. 

Printing presses, first 94 

Protestant Foster Home es- 
tablished xxviit 

Prudential Insurance Co. 
organized, xxxii; build- 
ings erected xxxii 

Public Service Terminal . 143, 162 
Pump at Broad and Market 

Streets 76 

Puritan monument. Fair- 
mount Cemetery, 33, 165; 

illustration 2 

Puritanism 83, 85 

Puritans 15, 22, 23 

Quarries ojiened, xix, 8g ; 

site 169 

Railroad oi>ened xxvi, 105 

Railroads 1 63 

Rankin, William, first hat- 
ter xxiii 



i8o 



A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 



Raymond, Thomas L., 

mayor 149 

Reservoirs, early xxii, 133 

Revolutionary War, Newark 

in 53-68 

Ricord, Frederick W., 

mayor 160 

Riots, early xix 

Rising Sun tavern, site. . . 170 
Road to New York estab- 
lished XX 

Roads, early 41 

Roosevelt, President Theo- 
dore, in Newark xxxiv 

Runyon, Theodore R., 

mayor 150 

Rutherfurd house 131 

Sabbath observance, see 
Sunday observance. 

Saddlery hardware manu- 
facture 93 

St. Barnabas Hospital in- 
corporated xxxi 

St. Benedict's College char- 
tered xxxii 

St. James' Hospital incor- 
porated xxxiii 

St. John's lodge l*" r e e 
Masons established ....xx, 170 

St. John's Roman Catholic 

church established xxv 

St. Mary's Orphan Asylum 

incorporated xxix 

St. Michael's Hospital in- 
corporated xxxi 

St. Peter's Orphan Asylum 

founded xxx 

St. Vincent's A c a d e m y 

founded xxxi 

Saw Mills, 90; first xix 

Scheyichbi, Indian name for 

New Jersey 25 

School system established, 

xxix; development 146-148 

Schools, early, xviii, xix. 
xxi, xxviii, 39, 86, 114, 
115 ; sites 169 

Schuyler house, Belleville.. 61, 62 

Scott, Winfield 85 

Second Presbyterian Church 

established xxiii 

Second River, battle of . . . 59-62 

Selectmen, termination of 
rule xviii 

Semi-centennial monument, 

proposed 1 69 

Sentinel of Freedom estab- 

lishe.l xxi 



Settlement, xvii, 3; reasons 

for, 10; extension of.... 41 

Settlements from Maine to 

the Delaware, Map 7 

Settlers, wealth of, 20; in- 
fluence of descendants... 151 
Seymour, James M.. mayor 153 
Shade Tree Commission es- 
tablished, xxxiii; early 

idea xviii 

Shenoctos, Indian 19 

Sheridan, Gen. Phil, in 

Newark 96 

Siierman, Gen. W. T., in 

Newark xxxii, 96 

Ship canal enterprise 155 

Ships and shipping, 95; sta- 
tistics 1845 xxviii 

"Shoemaker Map" of 1806. 88 

Shoemaking established, 

xxi; traveling cobbler. . 37 

Shoes, manufacture. . .xxiii, 86, 88 
Simonds, Ralph W., killed. 154 

Slave freed by Combs 87 

Slavery denounced by Senti- 
nel of Freedom xxi 

Slaves, 1804, xxiii; 1836... xxvii 
Smoke Abatement Depart- 
ment established xxxiii 

Social life 40 

Society for the Promotion 

of Useful Arts xxi 

Soldiers' and Sailors' monu- 
ment to be erected 149 

South Orange Township 

created xxxv 

South Ward 103 

Southern trade of Newark, 

126, 127 
Spanish-American W a r , 

first regiment in. xxxiii, 153, 154 
Spinning and Weaving, 

early 37 

Springfield, battle of xx, 65 

Springfield T o w n s h i p 

created xxxiv 

Stage coaches, 79. 106; il- 
lustration 78 

Stage line to New York... 79 

Stage roads between New 

York and Philadelphia... 6 

Staten Island bought bv 

West India Co ". 8 

Steam fire engines intro- 
duced 1 14 

Steam power 94. 107 

Stone bridge, site 169 

Stone quarried xix 

Stores, carlv. 39; in 1800.. So 



INDEX. 



i8i 



Strawberries cultivated I)y 

Seth Boyden . 9^ 

Street cars, electric, xxxii; 

horse 13J. 143 

Street lighting 133, 136 

Street railway company, 

first XXX 

Streets, xix; lines estab- 
lished, xxii; development. 
144; widening, a prol)lem 
of the future, 156; sec 
also names of streets. 
Subway construction, prob- 
lem of the future 156 

Summer schools 116, 146 

Suiidoy Call established... xxxi 
Sunday observance, early 
regulations, xxii; in old 

Newark 83 

Swaine, Samuel, delegate 
to General Assembly.... xvii 

Tablet laid July 4, 1826, site 169 
Tablets, see names of persons. 
Talleyrand in Newark. .. .95, 161 
Tanneries, early, xix, 37, 

40, 86, 93; site of first 170 

Taverns 76, 77 

Taxes in 182 1 xxiv 

Technical School, sec New- 
ark Technical School. 
Thanksgiving days, 34; 

hymn . . '. 35 

Thompson's hotel, site 163 

Tichenor's gate 38 

Tool making 90 

Town lots 41 

Town meetings, 24, 25, loi; 

called by drum beat 30 

Town pump, site 170 

Trade school 169 

Trade with the South. ... 126, 127 
Trades Assembly organized 142 
Traffic congestion problem. 156 
Training place. Military 

Park, 52; site 170 

Transportation 143-145 

Travel, methods of, 42; 

Sunday 83 

Treadmills used 94 

Treat, John xix 

Treat, Robert, 3; in Eliza- 
bethtown, 9; returns to 
Connecticut, 15; on the 
Hackensack, 16; governs 
town, 24; first cajitain, 25; 
delegate to General As- 
sembly, xvii; returns to 
Connecticut. 43; in Con- 
necticut Tniliaii wars, 44. 



45; governor, 46; "Char- 
ter Oak," 46, 47; Select- 
ing town site, illustration 14 
Treat, Robert, daughter of. 38 
Trees found by settlers, 21; 

early ordinance 38 

Trenton founded, 9; bat- 
tle of 59 

Trinity Ei)iscopal Church 
established, xx, 32, 75; 
hospital in Revolution, 
67; illustration, 60; lo- 
cation 170 

Trolley cars 143 

Trunk making 93 

Trunk sewer. Passaic \'al- 

ley 143 

Two hundred fiftieth anni- 
versary Committee . .xxxiv. 135 

University planned 148 

X'ailsburg annexed xxxvi 

\'an Berckel, Peter, in 

Newark 96 

\'an Horn, Amos H., estate, 
gift of Lincoln ^lonu- 
ment, xxxiv, 149; Wash- 
ington Monument.. . .xxxiv. 149 

War of 1812 draft xxiv 

War of the Rebellion, see 
Civil War. 

War of the Revolution, see 
Revolutionary War. 

Ward, John, appointed to 

provide ammunition .... 33 

Ward, Governor ■\[arcus L. 130 

Wards, division of the city 
into, xxvii, loi ; four 
wards created, 103; fifth, 
xxviii; sixth, seventh, 
eighth, ninth, tenth, 
eleventh, xxix; twelfth, 
thirteenth. xxx; four- 
teenth, fifteenth, xxxi; 
reduced to nine, xxxii ; 
increased again to fifteen, 
xxxii; to sixteen xxxiii 

Washington, General, in 
Newark, xx, 56-59, 163. 
171; flight through the 
Jerseys 56 

Washington M o n u m e n t, 
gift of Amos H. Van 
llorn xxxiv, 149 

Washington Park, xix; 

early market place 40, 167 

Washington Street, west 
boundarv. 73: known as 
West n'.nck Street 8t 



l82 



A SHORT HISTORY OF NEWARK. 



Watch kept by night xviii 

Watchung Mountains .... 19 

Water company, first xxii 

Water power, use of 94 

Water supply, 133-135. 152; 
contract with Aqueduct 
Co., xxviii; 1)uildings con- 
nected with, in 1836, 
XXX ; part furnished by 
Morris Canal Co.. xxxi'; 
jn-esent plant purchased, xxxii 
\\'atering ])lace, xix, 40; 

site 171 

Watershed enlargement, 

problem of the future... 156 

Waterways, early .' . 20 

Weequahic, Indian name of 

Bound Creek 165 

Weequahic Park, site of 

Divident Hill 165 

Wells, old 133 

West Rack Street 81 



^^'est ward 103 

Westminster, treaty of.... xviii 
Weston, Edward, manufac- 
turer of electric ap- 

liaratus 138 

Wiialing Company incori^o- 

rated xxv 

Whaling Ships xxvi. 95 

Winnocksop, Indian 19 

Women's Christian Associa- 
tion organized xxxi 

Woodland Cemetery incor- 
porated xxix 

\\'oodside annexed, xxxvi; 

divided xxxvi 

Yates, Henry J., mayor. . . 160 
Yellow fever in New York 

City xxii 

Young, Robert xix 

Young Men's Christian As- 
sociation organized xxxi 





















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